Frozen Ember
by YinYangSisters
Summary: Zutara Drabble series - ranging from whimsical to not-so-whimsical, and everything in between. Prompts welcome, updates may vary, no hate of any sort. Chapter 25 - Designed - Zuko's eyes drift to Katara's lazily as he waits for Aang to summon another attack, and he winks at her, a tiny smirk on his lips as that rare, playful side of him slips through the cracks today.
1. Painted Blue (1)

Feel free to submit any prompts for this drabble fic by messaging me, and I'll see what I can come up with. The main reason why I'm creating this is because I want to test my creativity, since I feel it's been gathering dust lately. Updates may vary, so please be patient when need be with me.

No hate whatsoever - kindness is magic, people.

- Yin

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

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**Painted Blue **

He's cold, his black clothing is flapping about in the wind, his body is jarring unreasonably tonight, but he doesn't mind.

His swords glisten under the moonlight, gleaming with the dark crimson blood of yet other thieves who were righted with riches and titled with honour (for some _damn _reason he didn't understand); he misses the warmth of the sun, the way it lit up the world, the way it willed him to carry on and push him closer to that destination of accepting who he _truly _was. But a mask is nice too, you know_ - _therefore he doesn't unwelcome the colourless sky that comes sauntering in with it.

He may not like the night, but he respects it; swords in hand, he listens from the rooftop.

The night was definitely a strange-beautiful thing, he admitted; a non-tangible force no one had the right to reckon with, including him (hell, _especially _him). It was so, so quiet, like nothing was happening, when he damn well knew a lot was happening. It was sneaky that way, the blackened sky and it's captivating lights that were hung up there so carelessly, yet so effectively; when he breathes out, he could see the chill of his breath escape through the sides of his azure mask.

His scar remained ragged and torn and ablaze under it even after all these years; he finds that he's already resting his fingertips on his mask, on the place where his marred skin should be, temporarily confused by the roughness that does not meet the skin of his sensitive fingers. He wonders what she would say if she saw it; he wonders where she is and why she's late, he wonders why she's on his mind again, ripped veil and all-

As if on cue, she's there; he can hear her burgundy robes flap in the wind, speaking for her. The corner of his lips twitch up beneath his indigo cover when he turns slowly to face her, seeing her full lips curve subtly at him, not even a pace away. Her veil is flapping lightly in the chilly breeze, the skin of her shoulders exposed, painted with the marks of red, her statement, her rise against all that is wrong, _just like him_-

"Sorry," she says, but it's barely audible, and the wind is carrying most of her voice away. "Disease outbreak. Healing center was a little too full tonight."

He doesn't know why the hell she's apologizing, since this wasn't exactly an organized thing (he's scoffing inwardly at the thought of it); he shakes his head, telling her not to worry, and as her smile picks up even more, so does his heartbeat. They call her a Lady even though the top of her head barely reaches his throat; he doesn't know how she does what she does, because she's _nothing _like him, but that's not the main thing that has him dumbfounded about her.

She sighs, but she's half humming, almost mischievously, because she's riskily playful like that; it's like she _knows _that his stomach is going to flip when she makes that noise, and he doesn't know whether to admire or scold her for it. Despite all these nights together, he's never seen her face properly before, but he doesn't need to; her lips tell all. A dark pink colour he can't describe, can't quite put his finger on, but he likes that.

"I was thinking, today - or, should I say _tonight_," her voice is still so quiet, this light, warm quality about it drawing him in. "You haven't said one word to me this whole time - are you aware of that? Not that I'm complaining, or anything..."

It's like she's going somewhere with this, and he doesn't know where that is, but he's warming to the idea of the destination; he folds his arms characteristically, leaning on one foot, looking down at her. She laughs quietly at him, almost like a giggle, but it's darker than that; he wonders if by day, she's anything like she is now, so risky, so roguish. He wonders if she takes off her hat, her veil, her dress, and pretends to be someone else - or is what she is now the pretending part?

"I never know whether you're looking at me, or over my shoulder or something," she breaths, and she's getting closer, peering up at him, as if she was attempting to penetrate straight through the thick, azure shield (which she sort of was). Her voice is almost sarcastic. "How can I tell, Blue?"

He shrugged, wondering when it was that she had started calling him that, where she'd even learned his name, because he sure as hell hadn't told her; he doesn't mind or care, though, because she's very close, and he's wondering now if, whatever this game was, thrilled her as much as it did him.

She's too close, now - he can feel the warmth radiating off of her body, onto him, in this cold night; she's looking up at him, and she's not touching him, but she may as well be. He sees her eyes for the first time, as he breaks his semi-serious persona and looks down at her - they're blue, a light, light frozen blue, and didn't see that coming at all. But it suits her, and her feels her hands reach up, nimble, healing fingers wrapping around the jaw of his mask, and he hesitates.

She's crossing that boundary, and it surprised him that this itself surprised him at all.

His lips are uncovered, and her ill-behaved smirk is gone; she looks at the eyes of his mask, right at him, and she doesn't need to voice her question. But she does anyway, just in case - why the hell not, right? "Can I..?"

Her voice is basically gone, so she's mostly mouthing - his lips speak for themselves.

"Yeah."

He knows he doesn't need to close his eyes, because she can't see them, but he does anyway; the chilly breeze slices at them on the rooftop as they kiss, but they don't even feel it. Her hands are at the back of his neck, pulling him down and he obliges, finding her petite waist through the mass of maroon fabric, pulling her to him. He's loosing himself and he can feel it, feel himself slipping through the danger of it all, and he doesn't know whether she's sweet poison or sour wine, but what he does know is that she's _addictive- _

He laments, wishing he'd kissed her nights and nights ago, had he known it'd be like _this_-

He pulls her so close she could barely breath, but she likes it - however, he tilts her head up so that he could kiss her better, kiss her stronger, kiss her with every piece of him that he couldn't reveal to anyone else, probably even herself, if it was the daytime. Because of this, her hat threatens to fall, and she's practically ripping away from his mouth with hers, smirking as she leaps off and away on the rooftops.

He pauses briefly, grinning and cursing, before bounding off in the opposite direction, for he knows he'll see her again tomorrow.


	2. Spirit Lady (2)

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

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**Spirit Lady **

This is what she _waits _for.

The chilly breeze that slices straight through her, the blackness of the sky that has no opinion or expectations of her, the sparkling lights that are hung up there so tangibly, so perfectly, yet so _recklessly, _and she loves it. She isn't the same in the day; when is the sun is up, the world is up, screaming and crying for her to pick up the pieces, to throw what she wants away and do what she must.

But now, the night is here, and so is she - what she wants during the day stops being an naive dream and becomes an infinite reality. She can do what she wants, say whatever she wants, go wherever she pleases, do things _her _way, because she has the safety of a silent village, of a sleeping world that doesn't even know this part of her exists at all, a world that, at night, will never see this side of her, this roughness of spontaneity.

She loves the night because she respects it; veil and robes flying behind her, she bounds through the rooftops.

She wonders if he's waiting for her, if he's even there at all, and she can't help her lips picking up at the thought of him; she doesn't have much time to think about anything, but when she does, she thinks about him. She doesn't even know what his face looks like, but she doesn't need to; there's something about him that makes her feel like she's not the only one living a lie, and that was so much more comforting than what she would have initially expected.

The breeze is on her face, and she peers up at the stars, careful not to let her hat fall - she perches on this rooftop to look. She knows she's already late, but the stars were mesmerising this night. Besides, he would probably scorn at her for kissing him so, as she did the night before. He would probably shake his head and sigh at her, jump over the lip of the roof and leave her forever, because that is what the consequences are for careless actions.

Even though the prospect saddened her, she didn't plan on stopping such behaviour - if she couldn't do what her heart pleaded at night, then when could she? He was probably the bad kind of trouble, anyway, she preached to herself; however, she did have a taste for danger. She breathed in the air, feeling the chilliness on her bare shoulders, and in a way, she's saying goodbye to him - because who would return after a stunt like last night?

She crossed a boundary, and she knows that; but she's not sorry for it.

As if on cue, he appears, so close behind her she can feel his chest against her back, his warmth spreading through her body. She half looks round, a smile playing at her lips, and he takes her wrist and spins her in a haphazard manner which makes her laugh. She can't remember when she last laughed so freely, and he's pulling her to him, and the bottom of his mask is pulled up so she can see his smirking, pale pink lips.

His porcelain skin is flawless, so perfect compared her own mocha one, sprinkled with scars and smeared red paint from the night's work; she can't even see his neck, but she has a feeling that the rest of him is flawless, too. It isn't until their noses bump together, and he presses his half smile delicately to the corner of her mouth that she realizes she doesn't care.

She doesn't care if he's flawless or marred, purple or orange, spirit or human.

He's kissing her now and that's the only thing that matters to her; he has a sturdy, tall stature that engulfs her small one quite easily. Muscled biceps are wrapped around her and she smiling into him when she feels his hands saunter to her waist protectively, possessively, softly. He's so warm, lips so soft, body so welcoming, and she can't help but be whisked away into a world that consists of only them and the night and the stars.

When he pulls away, it's not by much; he's smiling, lips mere millimeters away from hers.

"You're late," he murmurs in his deep voice, and this sends her reeling. He leans in, lips against the corners of her mouth as speaks; his voice is muffled by this and she could barely hear it, but it was raspy and perpetual, safe yet so dangerous. "Forced me to scour the whole village for you - why so mysterious, Lady?"

Her breath hitches in a half-laugh as his lips travel along her jaw, and she tries to figure where it was he'd heard her name, because she sure as hell didn't tell him. She can feel his lips on her temple, warm and delicate, trailing along her hairline as he presses her to him. Her head fits nicely under his chin, and she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, because this, dressing up and being in the arms of a stranger, is the most real she has felt in her whole life.

She's half smirking as she pulls back, raising herself on her toes as she presses her lips to his chin. "I haven't finished, you know. A good portion of the villagers are still ill - I shouldn't be here, kissing some strange blue shade of a spirit..."

He grins and he's kissing her again, the wind howling as he murmurs into her mouth. "Can't they wait..?"

They both pause, and sigh, because they both know the answer.

She shrugs and turns to leave, and so does he; the bound through the rooftops, the night air sending them reeling (but that's not the only thing). She's still grinning as she presses water to a sick little boy later that night, still grinning when she rising through the streets to leave, glancing at the moon one more time, thinking of him, before leaping away, savouring the last of tonight's recklessness.

She's not sad, because she knows that tomorrow, she'll see him again.


	3. Break (Up)

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

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**Break (Up)**

"I just...I just don't think this is working out anymore," he spoke quietly, a part of him even feeling a little ashamed. He couldn't look her in the eye, and his arms are folded like he had something to hide, which he did. "I'm not the same guy since before the war...and you're not the same girl, either."

She didn't say anything, pushing some ebony black hair behind her ear; Zuko bit his lip and cursed inwardly, wishing he was blessed by Agni with some tact, since that would be very helpful right now. It's like he's waiting for her to say something, to shout at him, hit him, throw stuff at him, maybe stab him with one of her daggers. In that sense, Mai was rather predictable. Or, so he thought.

"I hope we can be friends, though," he offered quickly, immediately regretting it, since it sounded so fake and un-cared for. That awkward silence came flooding back in again and he shuffled in his chair, scratching his head. "Hell, we've been friends for so long it'd be weird if we weren't-"

"You love her, don't you?"

His stomach sank instantly, golden eyes flickering up to her in a breathless frenzy, and this gave her the answer. She had her legs crossed and her arms folded, her expression blank, even a little disappointed. He couldn't not look at her now as he pressed his lips together; he didn't know whether to start with begging her not to say anything to anyone or deny it completely and pretend he didn't feel all that he did.

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

"I don't care that you're dumping me, _again_," she hissed a little, looking straight at him. "I'm just sick of you lying to me about it. When you get the waterbender, she won't cherish dishonesty, you know."

Zuko blinked, but she was already getting up and walking out the door. "I won't 'get her' - that's sort of my predicament."

Mai rolled her eyes. "Yes, you will, idiot," she stood in the doorway, pausing as she looked back at him. "She broke up with the Avatar this morning. You both think you're so subtle, but you're just as obvious as each other."

The door snapped shut, and Zuko was grinning widely. He concluded that this was probably the best break up that had ever happened.

Well...second best.


	4. Break (Down)

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

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**Break (Down) **

"_Nobody _gets it!"

Orange and yellow flames came bursting from his nostrils as he growled angrily, his voice echoing through the entire room. She just sat on the bed, watching him, listening to him as he paced up and down her bedroom, in silence. She could see the fury in his face, hear it in his voice, feel it from the heat radiating off of him, and she didn't say a word - this was his time. This was his moment.

He needed to scream.

And he did.

"I don't understand how I could even let this happen!" he roared, slashing his arms with small whips of blazing fire. He panted in anger, grinding his teeth together as he continued pacing. "I didn't even get to _see _her! When she left, I was like, what, 11?! I don't even know what she _looks _like anymore! And she's my own _mother_-"

His voice wavered, and Katara watched in anguish.

He was stationary, hair a mess, face stricken with confusion and _despair_. "I can't...I can't believe she's gone," he whispered, his hands finding his shaggy, ebony hair as his head shook in shock and horror. "I didn't even get to tell her I miss her, that I love her, that I fucked up before but...but I'm _okay _now-"

His mood changed rapidly, again, and he was screaming and shouting and punching walls, knocking vases of flowers off of the small tables. Katara didn't mind, because he needed this, and she knew that better than everyone. Zuko's fists were balled in tight knots as he screamed in fury, and there was so much fire lighting up her room that Katara could barely make him out. She just sat and waited, watching with her hands in her lap.

"Everybody else doesn't get it - they think it's okay because I've thought her dead for years, and so they don't really see any difference," Zuko spat angrily, nose scrunched in rage. "But there _is _a difference - my father's fucking assassins reaching her before I could, that's the difference! Her own _son, _who's the Fire Lord now, at that! Maybe it's a good thing she is dead, because she'd just have another reason to be _ashamed_ of me-"

His voice cracked on the word 'ashamed', and Zuko was on his knees, sobbing messily into his hands as he shook his head. She was up and in front of him, holding his head against the base of her neck as she rocked him slowly, tears slipping from her eyes because she _knows _what it's like to loose a mother. He was weeping loudly, and she knows that hardly anyone in the world has seen him like this - she doesn't know if that's a blessing or a curse.

She held him close, leaning her cheek on his head, tears falling for him, because he didn't deserve this.

No one did.

"I get it," she murmured into his hair, his body shaking as he sobbed against her. "I get it."

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AU (or not) - after the war, where Zuko tries to find his mother, but she has already been killed by Ozai's assassins.


	5. Stupid

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

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**Stupid**

"Morning, sunshine!"

It was an inside joke from last night, but he doesn't reply, sauntering straight past her to spoon himself a small portion of porridge, or oats, or sludge, or whatever it was that Katara made for breakfast everyday. She frowned, waiting for him to answer, waiting for him to apologize for this long pause, saying he was in deep thought or something like that. But he wasn't in deep thought - he just didn't want to talk to her. He didn't even want to look at her.

Katara was glad that everyone was playing outside, away from the Temple, because she felt an argument welling up inside of her because of his rough rudeness this morning. She didn't know what she could have possibly done to offend Zuko, but that wasn't what pissed her off; what pissed her off was the fact that he wouldn't even tell her _what _she had done, which she found to be very childish and immature and annoying and just plain _stupid- _

"What's wrong?" she asked, and they both heard the irritation in her voice.

Zuko grinded his teeth together as he slapped oats/porridge/sludge into his bowl. "What's _right?_"

Katara narrowed her eyes, dropping the spoon she was cleaning as all her attention fixated on him. Lately, they had been so close, been such good friends; they had told each other things that they had never dared tell anyone else before (their long talk last night being one of the many examples of this), and she thought that that _meant _something. Sure, they hadn't gotten off to a great start (what with her scathing words and rude comments) - but they were past that now. They were friends. That was all behind them.

Right?

Because if not, she had far more to be mad at than he did.

"Would you stop being such a stroppy llama-cow and just answer my question?" Katara snapped, full out glaring now. "What's the matter?"

He still didn't look at her, totally ignoring her as he seated himself down on the floor, eating whatever it was he was eating unnecessarily slowly. He didn't dare lift his eyes to look at her; smooth mocha skin sprinkled with scars, intoxicating blue eyes, long, dark, curly hair that smelled so fresh and sweet all the time. Because he hated all those things, he preached to himself as he ate - he hated everything about her, everything she was.

Right?

Because if not, he was in some serious, serious trouble.

"What is _with _you?!" Katara exploded finally, standing up with her hands on her hips, blue eyes raging just as she was. "I thought we were okay! I thought we were friends now! Because if we're not, and we're keeping a score on who's done more wrong to other, I'm _totally _wiping the floor with you-!"

"It's not about that!" Zuko barked back, setting his bowl aside as he glared up at her. "It's nothing that you've done! And even if it was, why do I have to tell you everything?! Why do you have to know every detail of what I feel every damn second of the day-?!"

"I _don't_!" Katara snapped back. "But if whatever you're feeling makes you hate me, then I have a damn right to know!"

"I don't hate you!" Zuko screamed, standing up as well. "That's the problem!"

She squinted in confusion. "What does that even _mea_-"

"I love you!" Zuko hissed angrily. "I love you, and that can't mean anything, because I'm already too late, because you're already _his_, because you wouldn't love me anyway, even if the time was right, and I can't believe it took me so damn long to figure out _I'm in love with you_!"

Katara didn't move - she didn't breathe, she didn't blink, she didn't sway, she didn't comprehend. All she did was stare at him with her mouth parted a little bit, not totally sure if she was truly _seeing _his golden eyes or his coal black hair, or the way his lightly stubbled jaw was clenched as he stared down at the ground in fury, smoke rising from his nostrils as he panted heavily from anger, from what he felt.

"You're so _stupid_," she spat, still glaring at him. "You're probably the stupidest person I've ever met in my entire life! And I've met a lot of stupid people! Hell, my brother out there is the _King_ of stupid people!"

Zuko blinked as he looked up at her. "Wh-?"

She stormed over to him, a frown knitted across her face as she grabbed his collar, pulling him down into a rough kiss, like she was annoyed or pissed off, like she was only kissing him to prove a point, like there was a very fine line in her brain that told her that she could either kiss him or hit him, and thankfully for Zuko, she did not choose the latter. He didn't have to kiss her back, mostly because she was too fast, and just shoved him away again.

"You think _you're _screwed for being in love?!" Katara hissed, arms waving as she spoke. "At least you don't have an Avatar in love with you! At least the person you love, loves you back! Imagine what it's going to be like for him when I tell him I've loved _you_ this entire time! Imagine what's going to be like for me, knowing I broke his heart my whole life, you stupid, stroppy, firebending, royal, pretty boy llama-cow!"

He scowled. "Pretty boy?"

Katara growled as she plopped back on the floor, retrieving her spoon to clean, her face heating up. "You are _so_ stupid."

They were silent as she continued to clean her spoon for a whole five minutes, before Zuko sighed. He marched over to her and took the spoon and dish rag roughly from her hands, throwing it away, silencing her protests with a _proper _kiss. He's smiling into her lips, and he knows that this pisses her off even more, which just makes his smile broaden. He whispers into her mouth, chaste and mischievous as her lips part.

"We are both _so _stupid."


	6. Marry Me

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

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**Marry Me **

"Ursa, this is ridiculous," Ozai hissed, folding his arms as he scowled. "The boy is _eight_-"

"I'd rather him choose, at eight years old, than not choose at all," Ursa snapped at her husband, matching his scowl. She then turned back to her son, who was perched happily on her lap as they leaned over the portraits. She laid her cheek against the top of his head. "Do you want to play a game, baby?"

Zuko's smile erupted as he looked up at his mother, large golden eyes glistening. "Yes, yes! I mean, yes please mummy!"

"Okay," she smiled at him, spreading out the pictures evenly about the large desk in front of them. "The game is called 'Marry Me'. Here are paintings of all the princesses from the different nations, minus your sister. I'll answer any questions you have about them, and then you choose to marry one of them."

Zuko crinkled his nose. "But girls are _yucky_!" he cried indignantly. "Getting married is _gross_!"

"It's not that bad, baby," Ursa assured with her soothing voice. "It just means that you choose somebody else in the world to be your best friend forever and ever, no matter what. It just means that you'll never be alone, that you'll look after each other no matter what happens."

Zuko pondered over this, pouting his childish, pink lips. Ursa smiled at this, at the expression on his face when he thought, as she shifted her son more comfortably on her lap. Ozai tapped his foot in the background, not quite knowing whether to step in or just walk out. His wife's definition of marriage sure was an odd one; or maybe their marriage was the one that was odd. But they weren't here to talk about their marriage; they were here to talk about their son's.

"Mmm...it _sounds_ fun..." Zuko concluded, scratching his head as he leaned over the table. Ursa smiled, but Ozai frowned, because Zuko had messed his bun so that strands of ebony hair stuck out from all directions. Zuko pointed at a painting with two girls. "Who are these girls?"

"That's Aishira, on the left, and Mamoru, on the right," Ursa answered in her soothing voice, propping him on her lap again. She pointed at the painting with him. "They're the Earth King's daughters - Aishira is your age, and Mamoru is two years older."

Zuko grimaced as he peered at them. "They look so...sad."

Ursa paused, silently agreeing, since neither of the girls were smiling in the portraits. "Maybe they just had a bad day, baby."

Zuko shrugged, gently pushing the paper away. "Still," he said, golden eyes scanning the other pictures. "I like people who smile. I think it'd be yucky to be best friends with someone who didn't like to smile, even when they had a bad day."

"Oh, Agni..." Ozai groaned, rolling his eyes. Ursa gave him a sharp look.

"Who are these girls?" Zuko asked, perking up. "They're smiling!"

"They're the girls who are daughters of the Leader of the Air Nomads, in the Air Nation," Ursa explained, following her son's finger with her own as she named them. "This is Sonaka, on the left, Mizai, in the middle, and this is Chazina on the right."

"They look happy..." Zuk identified. His smile fell. "W-Wait...what's that they're doing?"

"They're flying, using airbending, on their gliders-" Ursa pointed.

Zuko shook his head rapidly, pushing the paper away fiercely. "No, no, no! I _hate _going up high!"

Urse laughed, pressing her lips to the top of her son's head as she continued, sorting through the papers, casting aside the ones the Zuko had already declined. Zuko grasped onto his mother's clothes as he grimaced, the thought of flying still playing at his young mind, even though Ursa made sure the pictures of the airbending daughters were covered by that of the others. Zuko relaxed soon after, peering at the next picture.

"What about her?" he asked, analyzing the painting. "Who's this, mummy?"

"That's Yue, the Northern Water Tribe Princess." Ursa said, pulling the picture so that it was in front of them. It wasn't really a picture of her, alone - more of her with the moon beside her, at the dead of night.

"Why is her hair white?" Zuko asked, touching it with his small fingers.

"She was touched by the Moon Spirit, Tui," Ursa said quietly, touching the moon in the painting as she explained carefully. "You see, baby, when Yue was a child, she got really, really sick. So her daddy pleaded with the Moon Spirit to make her better again, and so, Tui gave a part of herself to Yue-"

"Or so the Northern Tribe proclaims," Ozai muttered. "It could all well be hokum-"

Ursa glared, and Ozai rolled his eyes, though, didn't speak again.

"That's really scary..." Zuko said quietly, curling back up to his mother, his eyes still on the picture. "I know that Tui isn't bad, mummy - but you said that best friends were forever. How do I know that one day, Tui won't wake us up at night and take Yue back?"

Ursa paused, holding her son close. "I don't, baby."

Zuko shook his head, then, pushing away the piece of paper with her painting on it, a silent rejection. Ozai sighed feverishly behind them, because that meant they were out of options, as there were no other princesses left. Ursa arranged the pieces of paper again, stacking them up, as Zuko remained quiet as he thought and thought, his small brow crinkled with comprehension, his tongue poking out of his lips.

"Wait, mummy," he said slowly, tugging on her sleeve. "If there's a North Water Tribe...isn't there another one? One that points down. A South Tribe?"

"Why, yes, baby," Ursa blinked. "There is a Southern Water Tribe, you're right - but there are no princesses down there. Only the daughter of their Chief; but that isn't exactly a princess-"

"Can I see her anyway?" Zuko asked, golden eyes expectant.

Ursa said nothing as she looked through the papers to find a picture, setting it down in front of them both. Zuko's mouth formed an 'o' shape as he peered at the picture, studying it carefully. Both parents exchanged glances but said nothing as Zuko set his palms on the table, leaning over to get a better look.

"This is Katara - Chief Hakoda's daughter of the Southern Water Tribe," Ursa said, leaning in to look with her son. "Although, she's not a princess."

"She sure looks like one..." Zuko said slowly, eyes never leaving the picture. "What's she like?"

"Well, she's a waterbender," Ursa said carefully, smiling. "She likes to play and read and laugh; or so her parents say. There haven't been any Southern waterbenders in a long, long time, so she trains a lot, too - like you."

"Kata-rah..."

Zuko was quiet was quiet for a second as he continued to look at the picture of a little girl with big, pale blue eyes and dark, curly hair. She had snow around her, a cheery grin plastered across her face as she sat on the back of her older brother, who carried her whilst laughing also. Ursa watched her son carefully, the way his eyes scanned over the painting. Ozai was, for once, silent behind them.

"I choose her!" Zuko said finally with a smile. "Marry me, Katara! There! Do I win?"

Ursa smiled, kissing him on the forehead. "Yes, baby! Well done!"

Zuko grinned widely, placing a kiss on his mother's cheek, before jumping off of her lap and running out of the room laughing, ready to play another game. Ursa turned to find Ozai grinning from ear to ear, and she couldn't remember the last time she had seen him this happy - well, maybe on their wedding day. But that was a long time ago; and something told her that there was a difference in this kind of happiness as opposed to that one.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but the boy actually did something remarkable!" Ozai said triumphantly. "The Southern waterbender, Katara, has been long awaited for decades! Back when that Tribe still had benders, the Southern benders were no doubt the most powerful! Imagine that, adopting, potentially, one of the most powerful waterbenders of our time into our family-"

"Zuko took an interest in her over every other girl - that's more than enough for me," She said flatly. She sauntered out the room as her husband grabbed a piece of paper and a quill, ready to write a letter to Chief Hakoda to tell him the good news. "Try to be at least pleased for your son's potential happiness rather than an all-powerful heiress, Ozai."

"Mmm, sure..." Ozai muttered faintly, concentrating on his penmanship as he wrote.

Ursa sighed deeply, watching her husband as he wrote; she hoped better for her son's marriage, that it'd be nothing like her own.

* * *

AU - in which Zuko is getting an arranged marriage, and Ursa isn't happy that her son has no say in the matter whatsoever. Despite his age, she lets Zuko pick his bride. Might make a second part to this, or even a proper fic one day. Let me know if you'd be interested.

- Yin


	7. Teardrops

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Teardrop**

Zuko doesn't cry much; hell, he _never _cries.

But when he does, it's one of five types. And Katara is the only person who knows him well enough to distinguish which tears are for what reason. This isn't just because she's his wife or his soul mate or his healer, the fuel to his fire; it's also because she's his friend. His best friend. There's a reason she can distinguish which tears are which - because she's felt it too.

.

The first type is when he is desperate.

It was back when they were still just kids - well, kids on the cusp of adulthood; she was eighteen, and Zuko was twenty, and they realized that all the letters they wrote to one another and all the time they spent together wasn't just because they were good friends. They talked all night, about things they didn't talk about with anyone else, traveled kingdoms to see each other, and they proclaimed it was all in the name of friendship.

That the war had brought them closer together, that they had common interests, that...that...-

Well, it was all lies, really, because they were in love with each other - they just didn't want to acknowledge it.

The night they did, however, Katara wanted to leave immediately; she was with Aang, and he was with Mai, and this was wrong, wrong, _wrong_. They weren't supposed to be, not like that; they had commitments, they had duties, and that wasn't something that could be cast aside for something as fragile as happiness or love. But Zuko grabs her by the wrists, hands sliding up to her tear stained cheeks and he tells her she couldn't be more wrong.

He's crying, tears slipping from his golden, glowing eyes.

"If we don't fight for this, now, then there's nothing worth fighting for at all, Katara."

He wanted her to stay, and so did she; and somehow, for the first time in her life, Zuko convinced her to do something for herself.

.

The second type is when he is moved.

She recognizes it for the first time when they go out to watch a play together, and for the life of her, she can't remember what the name of it was, or even what happened in it. All she knows is at some point, when the play came swelling to a climax, she hears Zuko sniff beside her. He has his arm around her, and she turns to see his golden eyes glistening as he blinks frequently, refusing to let his tears fall.

He catches her smirking and staring and just scowls.

"It was the same flute her brother had given her!" Zuko hissed, not looking at her, staring directly ahead at the stage from embarrassment. She still has her eyebrow raised, as if that wasn't really an explanation, and he falters in trying to explain what he feels. "It just...it got to me, okay?"

She can't contain her smile, so she presses it to his now rosy cheek.

.

The third, and the worst type, is when he is grieving.

He found out, irrevocably, that his father had died in the prison he was put in all those years ago; he wasn't as old as you'd think, and the guardsmen and other healers thought that there may have even been some suicide involved, but by then, Zuko wasn't listening. After what felt like hours of silence, Katara watches him with his crumpled face in his hands as he sobs quietly, leaning into her touch when she pulls him to her.

Because despite Zuko's father hurting him, burning him, shunning him, banishing him, rejecting him, shouting at him, fighting him, he was still his father, and that wasn't anything that could be changed or taken back or reversed; you don't have to like your father in order to love him. Katara finds herself crying with him, too, because she knows what it's like to loose a parent, tyrant or not.

He doesn't say anything, because what can he say?

They cry quietly, because when one gets hurt, so does the other.

.

The fourth is when he is overwhelmingly happy.

Katara knows it the second she sees it because she's crying for the same reason. It's because they're seeing their daughter, together, for the first time ever, kicking and screaming and beautiful. The midwife hands her to Katara, who can barely breath from the exhaustion of labour and seeing her first child for the first time, but she still manages to gasp and tremble, to take her child from the midwife's arms and hold her.

Her face is all scrunched up from her weeps, but she's smiling all the same, and Zuko presses his forehead against her temple, as if she doesn't look like a total mess after eighteen hours in labour, which Katara knows she does, not that she had the strength to care. He had his spare arm around his baby daughter, stroking her head as she fidgeted in his wife's arms, and he cried.

He had a smile on his face, like Katara, but he was crying all the same, closing his eyes as he pressed his lips to his daughter's forehead.

.

The fifth, and final type, is when he is inexplicably angry.

He's loud and he's furious as he marches straight up to the pair of noblemen who proclaimed (more like hissed), as they walked past, that his wife was a no-good, uneducated peasant, their daughter being nothing but a half-breed of a filthy tribal-dweller, a disgrace to the throne that she would one day rise to, just like the child Katara had been carrying within her for the past six months.

He has half a mind to beat them to a pulp as he screams in their trembling faces, right in the corridor of the Palace. Everyone is stopping and staring, the Elders not knowing whether to shake their heads in disapproval or just run away from fear. He looks scary, even Katara admits that, as their three year old daughter, Azuka, clutches at her mother's skirts, hiding behind her, peeking at her father's raging and hostile form.

Katara is the one to squeeze Zuko's shoulder with a small frown.

"You're scaring her, Zuko." Katara says in a quiet voice.

It's more than enough for him to forget what he was screaming about, turning with a horrified look on his face when he sees his daughter's brows upturned, still hiding behind Katara in fear. He kneels down and opens his arms wide to her, to which she hesitantly scurries into, and he whispers words of apology and sympathy into her ear, his voice soft and gentle and quiet.

He blinks away the tiny tears in his eyes as he hugs his daughter, because it frustrates him at how people of his nation could have loved his father and sister, for example, who were nothing but oppressors, simply because they was of the Fire Nation; as opposed to his wife, Katara, who had done nothing but good for his country and its people, yet still suffered the unnecessary hate and discrimination, along with his equally innocent children, both born and unborn.

He hauls Azuka up, who's smiling again, arms wrapped around her father's neck as he turns to glare at the two noblemen again.

"And if I see so much as _one _unpleasant look at my wife or children again, watch your back, for I'll send someone to stab you there if I don't have the time to do so myself-"

"_Zuko_!" Katara hissed, but she's grinning, because the look on their faces are priceless.

He smiles charmingly at her, shrugging before snaking an arm around her, turning their backs to the petrified aristocrats.

* * *

...Don't I have another fic associated with the number Five? I do, don't I?! (See what I did there?)

;)

- Yin


	8. Pact

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Pact**

The Ember Island Players make Zuko and Katara so, so uncomfortable.

But not for the reason that everyone thinks.

Zuko and Katara are sitting beside each other as it happens, their toes curling in embarrassment, because there is actually quite a lot of truth going on right in front of them. They watch their doubles, the actors on the stage below them as they flirt insistently and ridiculously with each other before they lean in and kiss. It's exaggerated and loud and totally unsettles the young benders who redden, absolutely mortified.

At the intermission, they make it a point at finding a secluded area to argue.

"I can't _believe_ you told someone about us!" Katara hissed in Zuko's face with fury. "We made a pact that what happened in those catacombs _stayed_ in those catacombs - to go behind my back like that and blab about us with your massive, royal mouth-"

"Katara, I swear to Agni that I did not tell even _one _person about what happened!" Zuko snapped, grabbing her shoulders to force her to look him in his golden eyes. "I know that back then I was no good, but even then, I promise you that I've kept that secret - I didn't even write it in my journal!"

"Wait, are you saying this all _my _fault?!" Katara exclaimed quietly, swatting his arms away before pausing, smirking. "Woah, you...you have a _journal-_?"

"Shut up," Zuko snapped again, cheeks reddening. "And I'm not saying you told! I'm just saying that maybe it's a coincidence - if neither of us told anyone what happened in Ba Sing Se, there's no other way of anyone knowing that we...erm...you know."

"I guess..." she breathed, but the smirk was still on her lips. "So...do you write about me in your journal now that we're...uh...'_friends_'-?"

"Shut _up_!" Zuko hissed angrily, though, his angered mood slackened as she closed the space between them and wound her arms around his neck, despite her quiet laughter that she brought close to his lips. His hands found her waist upon reflex, and he found himself grinning down at her, somehow. They hadn't been this close since Ba Sing Se, and he doesn't know what makes her so open to the idea again, but doesn't complain as he tips his face lower to her.

"I'm contemplating right now whether I should break that pact from back then, or not..." Katara hummed, close to his mouth, blue eyes flickering up to meet his golden ones, feeling his familiar hands on her again.

"How about a new pact," Zuko breathes against her lips, warm and inviting, and she's glad he's holding her up because otherwise, she's sure she'd have fallen by now. "Whatever happens between us, wherever and whenever that may be, stays between us. Sound okay?"

She nods lightly and he leans in properly, with the full intention of kissing the daylights out of her before the usher calls, signalling the end of the intermission; they both pull away with a silent groan, and just before they turn the corner to enter the light-filled main corridor once more, Katara runs a finger against the curve of his freshly shaved jaw lights, trailing down his open collared shirt before smirking and catching his eye.

Zuko realized, then and there, that this pact will probably be the death of him.

* * *

AU - This is what happened after Aang made a move on Katara during the intermission of the Ember Island Players.

Or, at least I hope it did...

- Yin


	9. Need

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Need**

Zuko has this feeling in the middle of his chest every time he sees her, smells her, hears her humming as she walks around his room with nothing but one of his old tunics on. It's not anything like friendship or love or lust; those feelings have come and stayed and settled, and they are recognizable by default. This feeling, however, was nothing like that.

He groans as he wakes up, not feeling her beside him; squinting at the sunlight that rages in through the window, Zuko throws the covers off and saunters downstairs with nothing but his boxers on, scratching his hair as he yawns sleepily. He's only half way down the stairs and he can already hear her singing lightly, her voice airy and carrying tone in only a way she could, making the saddest notes of all time sound like the tune of a humming-eagle bird.

She's not wearing his tunic today, but she has managed to find his maroon shirt that he wears every weekend, that he would be wearing right now; her curly hair is a mess as it trails all the way down to just past her waist and she has thick, ruffled socks on her feet, yet, her legs are bare all the way up to past her mid thigh. She has her back to him, but looks over her shoulders and smiles, blue eyes twinkling.

"I think you'll like this one," Katara says optimistically as she picks up the two mugs, banging the open cupboard at her side closed with her hip, which entices him in the strangest way possible. She hands him a mug, grinning. "It wasn't even that expensive!"

He takes the mug from her, rolling his eyes. "That's because the tea merchant has a crush on you, and gives you a discount on everything," He pauses to take a sip and smirks behind the mug at her expectant gaze. He swallows, wincing. "Don't like it."

She groans, rolling her eyes, taking the mug from him as she walks back to the sink, grabbing a large jug to combine the two mugs of tea together to eventually make an iced tea she would ingest herself over the week. The feeling is swelling up inside of him again, rattling his inner fire, as if nagging at him to just say it already, whatever 'it' was - he watches her from the doorway, and she resumes humming as she pours the tea into the jug.

"I refuse to die until I find a tea you like," She grumbled loudly, tucking a long, curly strand of hair behind her ear. He's grinning as he approaches her from the side, using the leftover hot water to make coffee. "Honestly, I feel like you're just saying you hate all the tea I bring nowadays just to piss me off-"

"That's part of it," Zuko admits with a smirk. "But you get pissed off at anything, so I wouldn't really have to bother, would-" he half laughs, half yelps as she smacks him with a water whip.

"Your cruelty is unnecessary." Katara hissed, but she was smirking back all the same.

He can't quite help himself as he pauses to look at her for a moment, before sauntering over to her and pulling her wrists away from the half prepped iced tea, picking her up despite her yelps and setting her on the kitchen worktop, kissing her with unnecessary softness, in hopes of cancelling out his 'unnecessary cruelty'. He can feel her smile a little into his lips but she soon becomes distracted, and that feeling inside of him is overwhelming.

Her hands move from his shoulders to his matted, ebony hair, her fingers threading themselves through it as she presses herself closer, her knees pressing both his hips together, like she was trying to crush him. She's pulling him closer to her, and Zuko feels like he's getting to the bottom of this feeling as she does that; he feels her hands roam to his neck, fingers stroking the back of it gently as she hums softly into his mouth-

And then he gets it. He understands what it is he feels, what this need was, and he feels so, so stupid for not seeing it. It was a simple need, a humble one - but even just thinking about the prospect of it makes Zuko smile, makes him warm and content and at peace.

It was the need to make her his wife.

He pulls back slowly, but his lips are still so close to hers. He blurts out the words without really thinking, even though he means it.

"Marry me."

She looks at him with shocked confusion, and Zuko waits patiently, because he doesn't care how long it takes - he just wants a genuine answer. He just wants her to say whatever will make her happy. He just wants her to know that she's the only one he'd ever want anything like this from. The pause is a long one, and he counts almost thirty seconds. They are frozen in their positions, eyes flickering up to one another's.

The corner of her lips tug up, and he kissed her immediately, because that was basically her answer, right?

"You didn't even get down on your knee, asshole..." she breathes into his lips, but she's smiling all the same.

* * *

AU - Silly Zuko. Says whatever comes into his head without thinking things through.

- Yin


	10. Am I?

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Am I? **

Neither of them quite know why she's there, at _his _doorstep, of all people, but they don't comment on it.

Zuko takes Katara's hand in silence, taking in her disheveled appearance and frightening, yet tired eyes; he leads her out right to the back of the palace, where the pond is, because it's the only place in the world where he feels calm, and after seeing her looking at him like that, that's all he wants to give her in return. He takes his Fire Lord clip out of his hair, letting it fall from his bun, removing his outer, exaggerated robes before seating himself beside her on the grass.

With her, he's just Zuko - that's all she wants, and because of that, he favours her a little.

They are quiet for a long time, and he is patient, which is strange, because Zuko is never patient; they listen to the turtle-ducks quack and play, listen to them splash about in the water occasionally, and Zuko notices her keep her fists and firm in her lap, like she's afraid, like she's guilty. Her blue eyes are hazy yet vivid at the same time as she looks down at the pond, not really _seeing _it, worried that if she starts talking, her lips will tremble.

"They look at me like I'm a monster," she said quietly. "My own people flinch every time they see me walk into a room."

He looks at her, really _looks _at her, because he knows how it feels. "They just need to get used to who you've become. You're not the same girl that left the Water Tribe a year ago."

Her eyes find the water. "You're right, I'm not," she admits, her mind drifting. "I was so desperate for strength, so desperate to be useful. But now I have it all, Zuko; I'm one of the most powerful benders of our time but my cousins won't even talk to me anymore, as if I'm someone else."

"It'll take time, Katara," Zuko said slowly, becoming very conscious of his burn. "You're one of the first bloodbenders to exist, and that's going to be hard for people to grasp, even your own people, even ordinary waterbenders. You're still _you_, just-"

She smirks darkly. "But this was what I wanted," she breathed, and he can see her fists tighten. "I wanted power. I wanted control and precision. I wanted to defend my friends and family and be known for my strength - but sitting here, right now, with the world at peace and my people ashamed of me - I want _weakness-_"

He lays a hand over her fist but it feels wrong, so he withdraws it. Zuko doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to make her understand that _he _of all people really _get _what she's talking about. It makes sense to him, why she keeps her hands clenched like that - she doesn't want to bend, not even subconsciously (at least, not in front of him) because she's scared that he might shun her, along with everyone else she used to know.

"We're all monsters, in our own way," Zuko says to her quietly. "But that doesn't mean we're bad on the inside, too."

Her eyes glisten and he hesitates, because he didn't want to make her cry; but she's crying regardless, silent as a couple of tears slip from her eyes as she bows her head in an effort to hide them, and this time, when Zuko rests his hand on hers, she holds it.

* * *

I don't think this is AU - I think it's just after the war. I think Zuko and Katara have so much more in common that what others forsee about them. Like, in Zuko's transition period, I really feel as though later on in the show, Katara went through her own transition. Whilst Zuko embraced his demons, Katara discovered hers. Discovered she isn't as flat and innocent as people think, as _she _thinks.

Either way, what I'm getting at is that power comes at a price - I hope I conveyed that okay.

Funny drabble next? I think so!

- Yin


	11. Enjoyment

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Enjoyment **

She loves making him grumpy just as much as she loves seeing him grumpy.

Katara does everything she knows Zuko hates (with the biggest, most playful grin on her face); she pokes him, whines unnecessarily, follows him around whilst yapping about something neither of them care about. It's not in her nature or anything - she just loves the way he rolls his eyes, grunts in annoyance, frowns in displeasure as he hears her start to ramble on about another topic. She just smiles, biting her lip in enjoyment, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

"Does it annoy you that I talk your ear off just to annoy you?" Katara asks, bouncing up and down his bed as he walks about his room.

He gives her a flat look and she just laughs, bounding over to him just to blow a raspberry right in his face with a grin; Zuko winces at the loud sound and just growls as he tries to ignore her, shuffling through his cupboard to find his Fire Lord robes and put them on and get the hell away from her as fast as possible. He hates this mood of hers; this mood where she finds pleasure in his irritation. He's always torn between banishing her form his quarters or just killing her on site-

"So, what're you gonna do today in your fancy Fire Lord office, sire?" Katara coos, pinching Zuko's cheeks painfully and shaking it about until he slaps her away with another growl. "Hopefully planning a _wonderful _celebration for your kind, beautiful, talented and powerful fiancee, just to prove your love-"

"Or her murder..." Zuko mutters, but Katara hears and she laughs, grabbing his ear and tugging it painfully, yet playfully. She adds that extra force on purpose, just to tease him.

"Aw, you don't mean that, do ya, Sparky?" she calls before he grabs her wrists, holding them above her head before pinning her to the wall of his wardrobe with a scowl on his face, watching her laugh and squeal below him, weakly fighting against his grip. That's what he hates the most, that she does it on _purpose_; if she took this seriously, she would have broken out of his grip and tackled him by now.

"You're right - there's a law against murder," Zuko acknowledged soundly, listening to her giggle as he spoke. "Since I have no heirs as of yet, it'd be wrong to leave my people in the hands of Azula whilst I rot in prison, right?"

Katara blinked, her smile falling a little. "H-Heirs?"

Zuko grinned at how distracted she got just by the simple word alone, still holding her wrists above her head, lowering his jaw to hers. She could feel his warm breath against her parted lips of confusion and half shock, her intent on annoying him slipping, the word ringing in her mind. "You don't think about our heirs?"

She blinked, heat rising to her face at how close he was. "N-No, I just...I didn't think _you _thought about them..."

He smiled above her. "Of course I think about them! That's the sort of thing you take into consideration before you ask someone to marry you, you know."

Katara just stared at him, a smile creeping up onto her lips, and already Zuko hated what he had just done as he let go of her, turning his back just as she threw herself against his back, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing herself to his back as she yapped on again, this time asking questions from a category that didn't offer many opportunities for Zuko to walk away from.

"How many do think about us having? Do you want a boy or a girl first?" Katara babbled with glee, because she didn't actually care about the answers; the fact that Zuko wanted and thought of having children with her was more than enough to send her reeling. But where was the fun in that?

"Are you ever worried that our children will inherit your grumpy-ness, sire?"

* * *

Grumpy Zuko makes me happy.

- Yin


	12. Irritate

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Irritate**

Zuko's biggest regret is not gagging this peasant.

"You act so high and mighty, like the very earth beneath your spoiled, royal feet should be worshiped!" Katara hissed, rolling her eyes as she shuffled against the tree at her back, the rough bark irritating her skin. "You speak of honor like it's something you can buy! It's earned, and if you haven't learnt that yet you're a fool-"

"_I'm _a fool?" Zuko spat, glad his guards had dispersed so that they wouldn't hear him respond to the waterebending girl. Her eyes were defiant even as he challenged her, even though she was tied up and necklace-less. Liquid fury burned in her even as he spoke, a type of fire he hadn't seen before. "I'm not the one who got ambushed by pirates! You're lucky I even saved your common ass!"

"And that's the only damn good thing you've ever done in your life, I'm suspecting!" Katara shot back fiercely, azure eyes narrowing. "And you're even messing up something as simple as rescuing someone; I'm your _enemy _- eff-why-eye- _enemies aren't supposed to be rescued-_" _  
_

"You're my _bait_," Zuko corrected sharply, his own golden eyes glaring at her. "The sooner I get the Avatar, the sooner I get to leave all this nonsense behind and return to the Fire Nation - maybe if you treated me a little kinder, I would remember it and repay you once I conquer your puny little Tribe down South-" _  
_

Katara laughed, loud and mocking, and Zuko's blood boiled. "What do you know about conquering?! Don't flatter yourself - you can barely track down one twelve year old boy over the course of months, and you speak of colonizing whole villages? You really are a fool-"

"You have no _idea _what the power of fire _truly _is!" Zuko growled, igniting an ember in his palm for emphasis. He held it close to Katara's face but her ferocity did not yield. She glared, and he glared back. "This one flame could take down kingdoms, empires - more villages than you can fathom-"

"Oh _please__,_" Katara growled. "Water extinguishes fire every time-"

Zuko growled. "Then the fire re-ignites-"

"Irrelevant!" Katara barked, snarling at him. "Fire dies, _Prince Zuko_, and that's a concept you don't seem to understand! Water, however, is _always _present. It never leaves, merely changes state. It has such a hold over your fire, one that _you _can't fathom-"

"You're saying that burning a kingdom, for instance, has no effect?" Zuko challenged, squinting in confusion at her. He realized that this conversation (of sorts) had turned into bitter debate, but he doesn't care. The peasant had a way of manipulating him that he couldn't understand, and didn't want to - all he knew was that she was the only one who seemed to match his anger during conversations.

"No, actually, I didn't," Katara spat, her expression hardening as she looked and looked and looked at him. "I'm saying it's easy to put out a fire - throw some water on that kingdom and it's fine-"

Zuko scoffed. "Blackened and charred and destroyed is hardly _fine_-"

"But would you try to light a flood on fire?" She questioned sharply. "Water is _much _harder to control, because it travels where it wants, changes when it feels the need - it's so much harder to control and understand than what any of you firebenders think in your naive little minds."

Zuko paused at this, scowling, because she had a point; what he hated more was the fact that she was very aware of this, a delighted, triumphant smirk playing at her lips as she stared him down, not relenting to his furious gaze or words. Zuko licked his lips, willing his inner fire to control itself before it made him do (or say) anything stupid or regrettable. He paced around the tree she was tied to, a smirk of his own tugging at his lips.

"Your flirting is atrocious, peasant."

"_Bite me_."

* * *

AU - The Waterbending Scroll episode re-made. That entire damn episode was one massive Zutarian-flirt-fest and everyone knows it.

- Yin


	13. Silly

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Silly**

She is torn between pretending this never happened or writing a detailed account in her diary.

Katara knows what tipsy means - it means a little but not a lot too drunk, that you can hold a semi-normal conversation, that everything around you suddenly becomes funny for no reason at all. Katara also knows that she and Zuko might be, slightly, a little bit less tipsy than what everyone else gives them credit for. They're fine, honestly they are - but then Katara laughs hysterically at Zuko's stumble over a sleeping Momo and people think otherwise.

Not they that have it in their intoxicated minds to care about such thoughts.

But no one stops them because this is what celebration looks like; the war has only just finished, and for some reason, the adults felt that 100 years worth of wasted light hearted-ness had to be rejoiced and remembered on this night. All the children are asleep, because this kind of 'party' was a little different. Zuko and Katara feel a little triumphant that they (along with a few of the other older kids) were allowed to stay up and 'enjoy' the festivities.

They're not as drunk as they seem - but as Katara watches Zuko with that charmingly mischievous grin on his face, she thinks that maybe that statement only applies to her. Despite the half-fall over Momo, he's quite rigid in his haphazard manner, even graceful as he leans his lips close to her ear. Katara wonders whether to blush or giggle as she feels his hot breath tickle her cartilage, yet finds herself doing both.

"Dance with me, peasant," Zuko hums in his deep voice, and she can hear him smiling. Katara feels a strange mix of timidness and boldness well up inside of her as she turns, her face dangerously close to his, a grin still plastered on her face, a blush still pigmented on her cheeks.

"In your dreams, _Sparky_," she hums back, and laughs immediately after at how silly the nick-name sounded on her lips.

But even though Zuko's grinning with fondness, his messy hair and amber eyes enticing her more than she'd like to admit, he takes action; he stands and grabs her hands, pulling lightly, as if to pull her straight up and into his arms. Katara laughs and swats at him but he doesn't relent; she refuses to join the center of the camp with the intoxicated adults, or with her brother and his girlfriend who kiss each other silly.

Although, she pauses - kissing Zuko silly _does_ sound rather desirable right now...

"Come on, don't be so _boring_..." Zuko says right into her face as he leans down, that stupid, contagious, gorgeous grin taunting her, willing her, convincing her. Katara is powerless to him in more ways than what he even realizes; she glances at his open collar, the edge of his new scar slightly visible, and she almost accepts. But they have the _exact same weaknesses_.

It's just that neither of them know.

Zuko gives in, flopping in the grass closely beside her, closing his eyes briefly and listening to the laughs of his intoxicated Uncle and the other jabbering White Lotus members who seem to be in very heated semi-serious game of Pai Sho. He turns his head to get Katara's attention again, because he just can't get enough of her, but she's already there, pressing the tip of her nose against his cheeks, her hand snaking around to the other side of his head, her fingers threading through his hair, and he grins.

"Don't worry," Zuko assures in a low voice, reaching out and touching her hair, the hair he had been admiring for months on end when camping together. Her hands are calloused a little, but he likes that, as her fingers find their way to stroke his scar. "I know that sometime, I'll get my dance with you."

Katara snorts, quiet and amused as she gazes up at him, challenging him. "Oh yeah? When's that?"

He looks right at her, and for a second, she questions his drunkenness.

"Our wedding day."

It's the last straw, and Katara decides to succumb to her need of kissing Zuko silly as she holds her mouth to his grinning one.

* * *

AU - THE AFTER PARTY. Let's not turn a blind eye, here. There was definitely a semi-mature party after the war that the audience of ATLA was not shown. (And in this party, Zutara happened, _I swear_).

- Yin


	14. Traitor (I)

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Traitor**

Maybe it was the crystals, the pale emerald spikes glistening in the corners of her eyes. Maybe it was the water, sparkling and calling to her, like it always did, even though it sounded a little different this time. Maybe it was the look in his golden, sheer eyes that made her forget about how much of a mess she was, yet force her to acknowledge how much of a lie she was living. Maybe it was his scent of burnt wood with a musky undertone as he stood in front of her, his body so close, looking down at her in a way that opened her eyes to all that she was kidding herself into.

All Katara knew was that in that moment, that single millisecond of silence, she was more than tempted.

For she realized that she didn't want any of it.

And Zuko saw that perfectly as he moved his way closer, his brain shutting down and his body functioning to its own accord, totally to the whims of his weak heart. His breath became a little ragged as he delved into the thought of it, taking her hands, forcing her to look with her azure eyes in fright and worry, in excitement and relief. There was no one here but them - no one to hear what they could say, what they could do, what they could _feel_.

Katara's brain is telling her to use this vulnerable opportunity to hurl the contents of the small steams and waterfalls into the ex-Prince, freezing him there and keeping him there until Aang or someone or _anyone _were to burst in and save her and flee. But her brain didn't understand that this was before she found out how alike they were; this was before she realized they had wanted and lost the exact same things, and that despite it all, they weren't here for themselves.

They were here, right now, expected to kill each other under Ba Sing Se, but if they were honest, they didn't want it to be like that, for they realized how fragile their hate truly was. Before, they were enemies - but after whispering a few guilty secrets and common ambitions, they weren't the same now. The deafening silence was due to the shocking realization that it didn't have to be like this - that however faint it was, they were given a choice in these catacombs.

They didn't have to fight. They didn't have to save the world. They didn't have to reclaim royalty. They didn't have to risk it all.

And then Zuko said three words - three words that could effectively change the coarse of their entire lives forever in the most perilous, unpredictable and most incredible manner.

"Come with me."

His voice was so quiet he wasn't even sure he had said it until he saw her face distort from the very prospect of it. He wasn't sure if it was from shock or confusion or anger or despair; what Zuko did know, however, was that she was gripping his hands like they were the elixir of life, like she didn't trust herself to make the decision, like she was depending on him to whisk her away or just leave her there before she drove herself insane.

It was the first time in Katara's life when she was afraid to admit to _herself_ what she truly wanted - finding it hard to recognize what that even _was_ amongst what she was _supposed _to do. She looked right at him; at his face, at his lips that spoke the words, the scar that called to the water around her neck, the amber eyes that warmed a place inside of her she didn't know she still had access to. That look of understanding and guilt and empathy riddled on his face like a plague, like a symbol, convincing and repelling her at the same time.

Katara didn't realize Zuko was all she wanted until Aang came bursting into the catacombs.

He took one look at Zuko and Katara and felt sick to the stomach instantly; they were standing so close, gripping each other's hands like they were the only thing either of them had left and Aang didn't understand. He initially thought it might be some trick she used so that she could later betray Zuko, but it certainly didn't look like that in their eyes. Why would Katara - his friend, his sister, his _love_, his _life_ - act as if she cared about this broken tyrant of an ex-Prince?

Before Aang could ask her, a thick belt of water slammed him into the stoned walls, knocking him unconscious.

"We have to hurry," Katara breathed shakily, her body quaking, because she wasn't used to falling so far below expectations like he was. She gripped Zuko's hand, tugging them into a sprint for small waterfall that was their ticket out of here to...anywhere.

Before Azula could dash into the scene, her footsteps drawing closer, Katara forced almost all of the water from the small cascade under their feet and sent them shooting up under a plate of azure liquid with a strangled grunt. Zuko panted from the sprint as he watched her, the tears in her half crumpled face as she thought of the people she loved, the life she left, the friend she'd practically sold.

It was the price of freedom, and he knew that better than anyone.

Because Zuko wasn't just betraying his Uncle or his cynical sister or his oppressor of a father - he was betraying his entire Nation.

They see the moonlight for the first time in what felt like years as the tunnel ends, the chilly breeze hitting their faces, their bodies thrown up high by the intensity and power of Katara's water. It's like they were _made _to do this, like running away was in their _blood_ - for they find it too easy to steal clothes from lines, mug people of some money, hop on the back of a large cart that is taking them (along with many cabbages) to Agni knows what village out there.

They cradle each other on the lip of the cart as their eyes gleam with bitter and ashamed tears of disloyalty - Katara is shaking in Zuko's arms and he feels like he's holding her body together to stop it from falling apart, even though he's quivering under the same moonlight. They wished they could have said sorry. They wished they could have been more devoted. They wished their friends and family were blessed with loyal, devoted people, rather than themselves.

They kiss each other softly at first, but it soon becomes their means of pouring out their distress and turmoil as they breath heavily into one another, Zuko pulling her into his lap so that he could kiss her with all his strength, with all his passion, with all his tenderness, because that was the exchange she had made for choosing him over the world. Through tears, she reciprocates; running her hands through his matted hair, practically feeling her lips being bruised by his own.

They did something terrible and they were sorry - they really were.

But tonight, for a reason foreign to every person who'd known them, their will to be free was stronger than their will to serve.

* * *

AU - in which Katara betrays her friends, her family, to be with Zuko. Requested by **Doctor Anthony **- so fun to write, thanks for the idea! For everyone else, feel free to submit prompt with a PM or even a review! **  
**

...I think the prospect of Zutara running away together on a cabbage cart is delightful.

- Yin

P.S. There are total of only 7 spoken words in this entire chapter - ha! It's funny, considering they're doing something so crazy! Irony, you _dog_, you!


	15. Complain

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Complain **

Today was what Katara would call a tough day.

The boy's mother was weeping, sobbing, half screaming, even. It was understandable, though, since her arms were covered in dark, dark blood from carrying her son to Katara after a wolf-tiger attacked him and his sister. Katara glanced at the small girl, shell-shocked and pale, her auburn her sticking to her face since it was moist with the blood of her older brother. Katara guessed the boy was about 11, the girl being around 7, as she flicked her fingers, holding the blood inside of his small, unconscious form.

"Please, please save my boy..." the women gasped out through weeps, her make-up running down her damp face from tears, dried blood covering her forearms as she threaded her fingers in her own hair, her face scrunched up at the sight of her son.

Katara gestured to one of her students across the tent, signalling for them to lead out the mother and the little girl from the room. The boy was out cold, his skin colder, which was a bad sign. Katara winced as she observed the massive bite taken out of the curve of his neck to his shoulder, the blood so cherry-dark that it looked like a form of tar.

This boy, this 11 year old kid - she hoped she could keep him alive just so she could tell him how brave he was, jumping in front of his sister, saving her from the wolf-tiger like that. For a second, Katara wondered what she would have felt if it was Sokka who had done that for her, but she pushes such feelings down to place deep inside of her, that consisted of guilt from deceased people, places and mothers.

She knows what the outcome of this is going to be before she even starts, and she knows what she should be doing right now is preparing pain relief to make the transition easier on him, but she just can't do it. She just cannot bring herself to leave his dying body be.

Pressing her palm to front of the boy's neck, beside the ghastly wound, she heals him from the inside.

Or, at least, she attempts.

.

No one feels as numb as Katara as she steps out of the tent, shaking her head at the mother.

After the body is disposed of and the horrified family have left, she sits on her own in the room, her face in her hands, her elbows resting on her knees, her legs crossed. She's not crying, because she's not the one who's lost a son or a brother - she doesn't deserve to cry, so she doesn't let herself. Ashamed doesn't even begin to describe how she feels, because if she'd been there a little earlier, he'd be alive. He'd be wincing, maybe sobbing in pain.

His face would light up when his family walked into the room. He'd thank Katara when she'd have called him brave, maybe even for saving him.

So when she returns home, to the palace, sickened with herself, Katara can't understand why Zuko's beaming at the sight of her, like he's been waiting for her, like she deserves it. It only takes one look, one shake of her head, one furrow of her brow for his grin to fall, for his arms to wrap around her body gently as her face finally crumples, pressed into his broad chest as she cries quietly.

He absolutely _hates_ seeing her cry, because she never, _ever_ cries. All the dreary things he wanted to tell her about his meticulous day fly out the window as feels her tears soak through his robes, her nails dig into the fabric that covers his back in terror. He wanted to complain to her, about how his job being the Fire Lord was so boring and frustrating, about how his entire day was built mostly around waiting on her to come back.

But then she does, and on some days, she's like this - unable to speak because the things she's seen make her feel too disgusted with herself.

As he holds her close, feeling their child inside of her kick lightly as she presses herself closer to him, Zuko decides to never, ever complain about his job again.

* * *

AU - being pregnant and seeing a child die on a typical day at work is hard on both Katara and Zuko. I know people praise Katara for being a master healer and all, but I personally think that the job has just as many sucky parts to it than it does great ones.

- Yin


	16. Run

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Run**

Nothing brings him more satisfaction.

He's seen so many sunsets since the day he was unfrozen, but nothing quite looks like this one. Everything is a blurred vision of reds, oranges, yellows, a few lilacs here and there. Aang breathed in the crisp air, feeling it run through his veins, and it feels different - the good kind. The peace is infectious, sweeping through the atmosphere, through the clouds, into his lungs.

Nothing could make this moment better; and then Katara steps into the balcony with him, proving him wrong with no words at all.

They take long look at each other before they smile and embrace, and he breathes in her hair like he has a million times, feeling her warmth spread through him like the glow of a thousand embers. When he pulls back, sinking into her azure eyes, he can't help but lean in close to her mouth, pushing himself up a little on his toes to reach her, his arms tightening around her back.

She pulls away, arms sliding off of him, this foreign look in her face as she looks away from him.

"No, Aang." she said quietly, looking down. She has this half-pained, half-exhausted look on her face as she pushes a thick strand of curly hair over her shoulder. Her pastel kimono illuminates her coffee coloured skin, the retreating sun stroking half of her face with it's light. She licks her lips, a dark magenta colour, the same lips he kissed recklessly months back.

"I...I don't understand," Aang said with confusion, even though he laughs nervously to cover it up; his grey eyes are confused and a little hurt as she refuses to meet his gaze. "You said after the war. You said...you said you were confused-"

"I still am," she says in a low voice. She sighed, azure eyes lifting to his. "I can't just promise that I'm going to feel a certain way in a certain amount of time-"

"Then why did you?!" Aang said quietly, a little too sharply, his impatience coupled with his frustration and pain. "Katara...none of this means anything if I don't have you. You said on Ember Island that you didn't want a relationship in war, well guess what? I ended it! Mostly, for you! For _us. _I don't understand what it is I have to do in order for you to love me-"

"You can't _buy_ my love, Aang - it isn't something you can force onto its knees like Ozai!" Katara retorted, a somewhat different look in her eyes. He hadn't seen that look before, and whatever it was, he didn't like it - it made her cold and distant. It wasn't the Katara who unfroze him one year ago. "You had Ozai to face and didn't need another reason to put you off - I didn't know what I wanted back then and I still don't, and I you _can't _make me feel bad for that!

"Then why did you feed me those lies?! Just to string me along and motivate me to end that war?!" Aang hissed, his voice growing louder. He felt his eyes dampen and he pressed his lips together to regain control. His words were barely a whisper. "Don't you understand? I _love y_ou. I've _always _loved you-"

"And what about _me_?!" Katara exploded. She could feel it in her heart, in her soul, as her fingers twitched at their own accord. She paced her breathing in desperation, willing herself not to loose control, not now. She closed her eyes, pulling herself together. "You've had your story Aang. You found out who you are and what you need to do - well, now it's my turn. I have to find out who I am beyond you or saving the world. On my own."

He gaped at her in horror as he pieced the words together, but she left, not wanting to hear what he had to say (or scream) on the matter - she had already made her choice. She passed her group of laughing friends as she entered the main room again, the light hearted atmosphere dampening as they watched her walk past briskly, Aang rushing to the edge of the balcony that joined to the room, his face crumpled as he watched her back retreat for the door.

"You're leaving me?!" Aang murmured, but it was enough to make Katara pause as she reached out for the handle, closing her eyes. He had this lump in his throat that sounded too prominent as he spoke, but he didn't care as walked forward a little, shaking his head in disbelief, in denial.

"After everything we've been through, after all these months of running and training and fighting, you're just deciding to up and leave? Didn't this past year mean anything to you?! Katara...I don't even _know _how many times we talked about what we would do after the war - and now you're just walking away, not wanting to truly _live_, for the _first _time in your life-?!"

"Don't you _dare _question the things that I have done for you, the things I've made myself do in order to protect you." Katara said in a low, solid voice as she whirled around. Azure eyes that were once a pastel blue colour were now so dark, so foreign to him - her voice was firmer, harsher. Her eyes flickered to her frozen friends who watched in total silence, and Katara felt a surge of shame and embarrassment. "I don't want to talk about this anymore-"

"I don't care!" Aang cried, grey eyes glistening as he strode right to her, looking her right in the eyes so that she couldn't avoid him or push the matter away. His voice sounded so weak and strangled, and already, Katara started hating herself for doing that to him. "I don't care if anyone hears. I don't care if they laugh at me. I love you, and I'm not letting you leave for the peace we've worked so hard for-"

"Leave?!" Sokka repeated, but was totally ignored by the pair. The group were still huddled around the table holding his forgotten painting, shell-shocked as they witnessed the argument unfold in front of them. They'd never heard Aang raise his voice before - let alone Katara sound so cold. Even Iroh was silent, golden eyes surveying the two across the room.

"Look," Katara sighed deeply, taking the pink flower from her hair, pressing her tears back into her eyes with bending, forcing herself to look at him. "I don't expect you to understand. I don't even expect you to like it. I just need you to respect that it's my time to find my way, now. Alone."

She took his hand and placed the flower there, curling his fingers over the petals before releasing him, turning for the door.

The rest don't know whether to look away in horror or at them in total shock. Toph gaped, Suki gasped, Sokka blinked, Iroh was silent, and even Mai watched in total surprise. Zuko felt his stomach drop, because he knows that look in her eyes. He knows what it means, for he's said and done the _exact same things_. He's tense, and Mai glances at him, frowning as his eyes fixate on the waterbender in worry.

Zuko knows _exactly _what Katara means, for he's been there - which is the very reason why he is silently supporting her.

Katara makes it a point not to apologize - she refuses to apologizes for making a decision with her heart for once, as she reaches for the door handle again. She knows that once she walks out of this tea shop, that's it. She doesn't know where she will go, she won't know how long for, or whether she can ever return. All she knows is that she has to leave. It is the only option. She _has _to leave.

All Katara knows is that she has to leave before she accidently kills the people she loves.

"_No_!" Aang cries, wrapping his arms around her tightly, pinning her own arms to her sides. It takes everything in her not to cry as she feel him sniff into her back, unable to hold in the tears that spill out of his eyes. "I think...I think I know why - just please, _please _don't run away from me..."

The room was so silent they could hear Aang crying against her back - the group of friends didn't know whether to leave or convince Katara to stay, didn't know whether to pry Aang off of her and demand an explanation from her or continue to pretend they didn't exist - all they knew was that they couldn't keep their eyes off of them. Zuko held onto his breath tightly.

"No, you don't..." Katara whispered, shaking her head, struggling against him weakly. She made her voice sound firmer, like a consoling mother as she wiggled a little, trying to pry him off of her in a way that wouldn't upset him more. "Aang, let go of me."

Zuko rose, alarming everyone, tentatively approaching the Avatar as he clung onto the waterbender with all his might, like a child. He laid a hand on his back, his voice soothing, consoling, understanding. "Aang...Aang, you have to let her go; this isn't your choice-"

"I know you're scared and insecure," Aang said quietly, breathing still erratic from his crying. "That I'm the Avatar now, that I won't have time for you, that I have the Avatar State and all that - but you'll always have me. I'll always be yours. Don't be angry or afraid now that you have to share me with the world, now that it's not just you and me anymore. I'll always love you, take care of you, give you everything you could ever want, just don't go. Don't ruin the life we could have together-"

"DO _NOT _TELL ME HOW TO FEEL!"

They all leaped back with a cry, Zuko jumping away and pinning his back against the wall in terror as Aang went flying past him, slamming into the lip of the table Sokka was once painting at. They watched in total horror as his small body convulsed quickly as he rose a centermeter off the ground, frozen there, unable to even blink. Grey eyes were petrified as they fight to skitter about in complete fear, in the loss of control he had in his body.

Katara still faced the door, panting in rage, fists balled up, once innocent face twisted in a snarl.

"Have you ever thought that maybe I didn't _want _that life?! That maybe this isn't about _you_ for once?!" Katara growled, tears of rage pricking at her eyes. "Don't tell me that I _ruin _your life just because I want to do something for _myself_. The truth is, Aang, I don't fit into your perfect little world of purity anymore - so don't you _dare _think for a second that me giving up everything I have _ever _loved is simply because I feel _insecure _about the _prospect _of sharing _you_-"

"KATARA!" Iroh roared above her barks. "RELEASE HIM!"

Her heart sank at the general's words, because this time, she didn't even _realize _she was doing it - only once Katara whirled around did Aang's body fall back onto the wooden floor with a loud bang and clatter of his limbs. Sokka and Toph rushed to the spluttering air nomad as Katara clamped a hand over her mouth in disgust, her azure eyes so wide Zuko thought they might burst out as they brimmed with tears of shame and complete fear.

"Wh-What did...what did you _do_?!" Mai hissed in terror, her eyes darting between the half conscious airbender, groaning on the floor as Sokka shook him lightly, Toph propping his head up onto his lap, and the quivering waterbender.

Katara stumbled back shakily, her back hitting the door behind her - she glanced at her hands, and then back at Aang. Tears slipped from her eyes like falling stars as they all stared at her in fear, in shock, in horror. Looking at Aang, her friend, her brother, laying on the floor like that with only a weak breath passing through his lungs, she knew she had to leave. Soon. Now.

She'd promised she wouldn't apologize for leaving - but Katara found herself breaking a lot of promises these days.

"I'm sorry." she mouthed, unable to forge the sound as she opened the door and fled.

Zuko shivered a little as he looked outside at the setting sun, just peaking out of the horizon before bidding its final farewell for the day. Everyone in that room knew what Katara had just done. They all knew what Katara should not have been able to do in even _daylight_, but somehow did anyway. The young firebender's fixated on the place where she'd once stood.

"Uncle," Zuko murmured after a while. "Is it even a full moon tonight?"

Iroh frowned, pausing with worry. "No, my nephew," he replied quietly, laying a hand on the Avatar's forehead. "It isn't."

* * *

She didn't think twice - once the stars came out, Katara shoved her clothes into her bag.

She didn't even bother to fold them or double check she had everything before she closed her bedroom door quietly, grabbing a few buns from the kitchen before making her way downstairs to the main tea shop. Katara wished she would have chosen to stay somewhere else, but her friends insisted - but she hadn't planned on running away tonight. However, after earlier that day, she couldn't trust herself to stay any longer.

She paused at the last table, which was by the door, before removing her mother's necklace and placing it carefully on the long, mahogany desk. She didn't deserve to keep such a sacred heirloom, and she knew that. She hoped that maybe, one day, she could earn it back - but until then, it should lie on the neck of a worthy daughter.

She drew in a breath as she opened the door, remembering the faces of her friends in her mind one last time.

"Wait up, peasant," someone whispered from the bottom of the staircase. And she knew exactly who it was without having to turn, though she did anyway. Zuko walked over to her, bag over his shoulder, grinning. "Can't leave without your favorite firebender, now can you?"

She glared at his grin. "Go back to bed," she hissed, turning, reaching for the door again.

"You know that's not gonna happen," Zuko said plainly, quietly, as it was the dead of night. "I'm going with you whether you like it or not."

"No you're not," Katara said firmly. "I don't care if my brother sent you to take care of me. There's a reason I'm going alone, Zuko. You saw what I did to Aang today - and that was when I didn't even know I was doing it. Are you really sure you want to take your chances, travelling with me at _night_?"

"Sokka didn't ask anything of me," Zuko assured, golden eyes alive against the darkness, so sincere as he turned to a more serious note, sighing. "I need to find my mother, Katara. I've been planning on searching for her for a while now, but with the war ending...I have to know where she is, if she's alive. I thought that out of everyone, you'd respect that the most - just like I'm the only one who can really respect you having to go alone for a while."

She watched him, a frown still playing at her features. She knew he wasn't lying, but the prospect of travelling with the former Prince eased her slightly - Zuko, oddly enough, was sort of an ideal partner right now. He wouldn't judge her for her monstrous abilities, as he'd done monstrous things himself. He didn't need looking after or protecting. He knew his way around the world well, having chased them for so long.

And, most importantly, he didn't criticize her for her decisions - still, she remained wary.

"What about the Fire Nation? It can't rule itself." Katara pointed out, looking up at him with concern. "You can't just up and leave your country like that."

"For the next few years, there's nothing I can really do," Zuko said after a pause, wondering if he was able to reveal such information and then not caring. "Right now, before I can make any real changes, the Fire Nation has to that it can maintain its place in the world without harming anything or committing genocide. This is mostly through trades and noble parties, things my Uncle is taking charge of."

Zuko paused. "They basically suspended me for a few years, so no one's going to come looking for me - not even my Uncle," Zuko paused, wondering whether he should be embarrassed or not for saying it. "He says it's like carefully prepping my throne like having to prep jasmine tea before ingesting it."

Katara laughed quietly, an infectious laugh that made him almost start laughing too. "That sounds like your Uncle, alright," she said quietly, though her smile eventually fell. She didn't feel satisfied with his answer, but that wasn't the worst worry on her mind. "But...this may not be just for a few years, you know. If I can't control my bloodbending, Zuko...I doubt I'll ever let myself return."

They were quiet for a moment, before he answered. "Then when I come back, I'll tell everyone you miss them."

After a long pause, Katara gave in and they left - Zuko paused before shutting the door to the tea shop, glancing at the table and seeing Katara's mother's necklace. He looked over his shoulder, seeing she was a good few paces away before gently folding the ribbon around the pendant, slipping it into his pocket - she deserved her mother's token, despite the fact that she herself didn't think so.

It was the second time he had 'stolen' her necklace; but this time, it was for a good reason, so he didn't feel guilty.

He hurried to join her side, and on the twelfth day of summer, Zuko and Katara left their lives behind.

* * *

AU - when Katara finds she can bloodbend during the day, she wants answers. Zuko tags along too, hoping to find his mother along the way. Re-write of the final episode at the end, when they're in Ba Sing Se (the scene every Zutarian absolutely hates).

I know everyone praises Aang like he's the bee's knees, but he's barely 13. FYI, 13 year olds are not crazy mature and understanding, even if they are the Avatar - they're kids. Hope I showed this here. Also, I really wish this actually happened, because I feel like once Katara got with Aang, she lost herself quite a lot. And since Zuko knows what it's like find yourself again, alone, when no one understands...

Well, I just think that he'd be supportive of her, my devotion to Zutara aside.

**HEADS UP**: Around June+, I'll be making an actual story out of this. And remember **Chapter 6 - Marry Me**? With cutsie Zuko choosing his bride? Yeah, I'm making a fic about that, too - totally separate to this, of course. Would any of you be interested in that..? Let me know!

- Yin

P.S. I still have three other Zutara stories to finish up before I start these two...Agni help me, right?


	17. Rain

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Rain**

She held the water over them as they sat on that rock - like a small, secluded dome. Just for them.

"Cheer me up, Zuko."

He looks at her like she's crazy, as she rests her chin on her palms, and she's already smirking a little. He hadn't been friends with her for that long, so he doesn't know if she's taking this as a joke - expecting him to burst into song for her, or something ridiculous like that - or if she's actually wantng a serious, fool-proof, flawless way to get her smiling again. Zuko struggles internally, and this must have been prominent in his face, for she laughed.

"It's raining!" she explained, a light tone still at her voice. She gestured to the rain they'd been sitting in sarcastically, unable to wipe the smirk off of her face as he frowned harder. "It's fact that dreary weather makes people not feel as happy as they could be - so, go on. Fix me already!"

He blinked, many questions arising from that statement. "But you're a waterbender," he stated simply, and he didn't know why that made her giggle but it did. It took everything in him to hold in the smile that wanted to burst so desperately from his mouth. "You're surrounded by your element - a part of you. You should be happier than anyone right now."

Her smile was small. "You can't tell happiness when to come and go," Katara said, and the tone of her voice made him think there was more to that than what she was telling him. She squirmed a little, her shoulder brushing his broad one. "But maybe you're right. Maybe I should relish in my element."

Zuko stared at her for a little while, not knowing what the difference was now in her 'relishing', than whatever she was doing previously. She sat the same way she did, closely beside him on the large boulder, staring out into the field that grew muddy from being pelted by the relentless droplets. She lazily had her hair tied in a bun at the back of her head, strands of dark curls escaping.

_"Cheer me up, Zuko." _

He ponders - once, twice - and then he acts, lips against her cheekbone.

Zuko doesn't know whether what he's done is incredibly wrong or right, since it distracts her, making her blink rapidly from the sudden action and before they know it, the contents of the rain she had been holding up falls onto their bodies with a loud slap, rather painfully. They both gasp loudly, mouth open, shoulders rigid from the intense cold that digs into their bones, soaking straight through their clothes to their skin, matting their hair against their face.

"What the _hell_?!" Zuko screeched, and that, combined with the look on his face, makes Katara roll about with laughter as the rain continues to hit them from the sky, drowning her laugh and his irritation in the best way. "Why did you do that?!"

"I didn't _choose _to!" Katara gasped between laughs. "I just...I just didn't expect it, that's all!"

Zuko growls angrily, glaring at her. "I am _never _kissing you again!"

The comment only sends her into a frenzy of laughter again, and after a while, even Zuko's suppressing a grin, listening to the sounds of her voice hit those hard to reach notes as she gasps for breath, and he glances at her, seeing that blush that covers her coffee coloured skin like it does every time she laughs herself into a state. Still, he shivers as the rain continues to beat them.

"Don't say that, Zuko!"

He opens his mouth to spit out a retort but he can't help himself, grinning as he watches her clamor messily over to him (the laughing having gone to her head) as she practically pushes them off of the rock so that they hit the muddy ground painfully, her body sprawled over of his, her lips at the corner of his mouth, her hand at the back of his head holding them there, the rain shooting down against them with glee.

And now, Zuko's the one laughing, his arms winding around her upon instinct.

* * *

Requested by **River Wolfgirl **- writing this put me in such a great mood! Thank you for the prompt!

AU - I just _love _socially awkward Zuko. Nothing makes me happier. E.G. "Hey. Zuko here." - Honestly, it gets me in hysterics _every _time. And it makes sense, doesn't it? He didn't really have proper friends in his life, so I guess he never got to develop skills that we find so basic (well, some of us, not including me. I'm just as awkward, I swear).

Thank you for the great response to the last chapter - happy to know people I interested in follow-ups to **Marry Me **and **Run. **

If you could suggest some names for them too...that'd be awesome.

- Yin


	18. Honour

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Honour **

.

_"Remember this, Zuko - no matter how things seem to change, never forget who you are." _

.

Within minutes, seconds, nanoseconds, everything shifted.

Here are the facts: Zuko left his uncle. Zuko was now _really _alone. Zuko had walked for two days. Zuko hadn't eaten in two days. Zuko saw the smoke of an upcoming Earth Kingdom village. Zuko went to it. Zuko was attacked on the way. Zuko didn't remember anything else.

And now, Zuko awoke with a start, eyes fluttering open to the sound of rough barks of men.

He was sitting on the sandy ground, hands tied behind a tree, legs stretched out in front of him, ankles tied closely together. It was already dark, and Zuko wondered how many days had passed, hissing at his aching neck that was bent forward throughout his unconsciousness. He lifted it with a groan, loud shouts and occasional menacing laughs of a group of men a few yards away, were, apparently, coming closer.

"Tie her up with the Prince, over there!" he heard, mind still groggy as he tried to process the words with eventual dread. He heard the hisses of a girl, trying to focus his eyesight to the darkness as he groaned from the hunger that burned inside of him. "And use the good rope on her, too. Feisty vixen, that one."

Zuko felt a thud close behind him, supposedly this girl this crew captured; this suggested that this tree wasn't as thick as he thought. Maybe once the sunrise came about, he could whirl around some fire and burn this tree down, take out these burly group of men with the sun's power and be on his way. Though he contemplated this, Zuko knew this would be difficult; his body was riddled with savage bruises, a few cuts here and there, and he hoped he'd heal enough by dawn.

He played the part as he felt one of the men take this girl's and, winding them around the tree behind her and tying them. Zuko felt her hands brush against his back, and even through his clothing, he could _feel _the strength in her fingers as he pretended to remain unconscious. He wondered why she was succumbing to their rough handling when she had the energy to escape if she really tried - and then he wondered why she'd been captured in the first place.

"You're lucky, waterbender," one of the men grunted, kicking her side for emphasis. Zuko heard her hiss, and fought not to hiss along with her - that kick sounded brutal. And then Zuko registered the words, attention re-focused. "If you weren't worth so much, the men'd have their way with you right here in this desert. Yet, you escape with a few bruises-"

"Lucky me," the girl said in a dark voice. "Not every day a girl gets beaten instead of raped-"

"Watch your tone, water peasant!" the man barked after hitting her again, and from the sound she made, Zuko guessed it was across the face. He twitched, because his mother had always taught him girls weren't to be treated with disrespect. Zuko felt partially responsible for not defending her, even if it was only to live by his mother's words.

The man left, walking yards away where Zuko located a fire out of the corner of his eye of this bounty hunting crew, who sat huddled around exchanging coarse laughter and vulgar language that could be heard even from where they were. He felt the girl groan, shifting against the bark of the tree weakly, feeling her hands twitch against his back. It half tickled and alerted him, the way her fingers unintentionally brushed against his clothes.

"You don't have to pretend around me," the girl said. "I'm not the one who wants to sell you."

Zuko scoffed. "Yeah, you'd rather have me dead," he replied in the same bitter tone. "Where's the Avatar and your little group? Finally forget about you?"

He could almost hear her surprise. "You know who I am?"

Zuko rolled his eyes, though she couldn't see it. "What other waterbender would stray so far from their tribe as to wind up in the Earth Kingdom? I've tracked you and the Avatar for months now - do you really think I'm stupid enough not to pick up on your habits?"

"No need to get snarky, your highness," the waterbender snapped. She didn't sound as hostile as Zuko thought he would; she seemed a little more...sadistic. "I have a name, and it's _Katara_. We're in the same boat, here - hate me all you want _after_ we get out of this mess."

"Why are you even here?" Zuko asked, frowning at the thought. "Why did they capture you and not the Avatar?"

"Who said I was with the Avatar?"

Zuko paused. "You're his waterbending master-"

"_Was_."

This caused Zuko's golden eyes to widen slightly - she didn't seem like the girl to betray people, let alone her friends. Hell, she didn't seem like the kind of girl to even know what the word 'betray' even really meant. It was puzzling to think that the loyal girl he'd been fighting mere weeks ago had turned her back on the world - but to what side? The Fire Nation? Into hiding? Running away like him?

The real question was _what was she running away from_-

"How about you don't question my decisions and I won't question yours," he heard her say in a firm voice. He felt her fingers move against his back again, knuckles grazing against his shirt slightly as she shifted herself more upright, letting a solomn 'fine' as his response before she continued. "They know that I'm the last Southern waterbender. Decades ago, we attained a powerful technique that is, apparently, worth a lot. Selling me to the right people could keep them living comfortably for a long time."

"So, they're bounty hunters," Zuko groaned, letting his head fall back against the rough bark of the tree that separated them. "Surprise, surprise - my scar got me into a huge mess. Again. Agni knows how I'll get myself out of this one-"

"Give it a couple hours," Katara replied, somewhat calmly. "There's a waning moon tonight. Should give me enough strength to bust us out of here - unless you've devised some master escape plan that I'm not aware of?"

Zuko grinned. "If waiting for dawn to give me the strength to set this tree on fire, then yeah, I got this one."

Katara snorted and Zuko found himself snorting with her, even though what he'd said wasn't even that funny. Her mind wandered as she felt his fingers slide against her back as they twitched a little. She had nothing holding her back now - not Aang, not her brother, not Toph, not the people of the world who she thought were her responsibility. So Katara allowed her curiosity to get the better of her - _she spoke the words before she thought them._

"What...happened? Your scar, I mean," she asked a little quieter. "Who did that to you?"

It puzzled him to think that she thought of his scar as the wrong doings of another person, rather than seeing it as a symbol of shame, which was the only way Zuko had ever viewed it in his life. Still, he contemplated the thought of telling her, because if he did, she would be the first person he would have ever told. His thought process started with, 'Agni, of course not!' to 'I have no one; what do I have to loose?' - _he spoke the words before he thought them_.

"I spoke out once at a war meeting when I was about fourteen, back in the Fire Nation," Zuko explained, almost casually. "You see, meetings like that...if you manage to get yourself into one and you're not a general, it's a big deal. And since my father had always favoured my prodigy of a sister, I needed the boost."

"What made you speak out?" Katara asked, her voice like a whisper against the faint cackles of the distant men.

"Innocent people were to be killed by the hundreds - my mother taught me better than that," Zuko said, softly yet so firmly at the same time. "Anyway, my father was beyond furious - he forced me into an Agni Kai. It's-"

"A dual between two firebenders," Katara finished slowly, looking down at her lap as she listened to the sound of his deep voice speak so gently. She wavered, because she had a feeling that once this conversation was over, she'd never look at him the same way ever again.

"Yeah," Zuko said quietly. "Well, after being beaten up I begged for mercy - you know, because the dual only ends once you've killed your opponent. But my father, he...he said I needed to be taught a lesson and then burnt half of my face off. Then he banished me, said I had to restore my honour by proving my worth, by finding the Avatar. Like it was something that could be given. Bought with a life."

"And what did your mother say? Or...do?" she asked.

Zuko paused. "She was killed a few years before," he said. "At least...that's what we were told."

Katara didn't say anything as she let the words soak in.

Immediately once he had finished talking, and silence settled around them, Zuko regretted having ever spoken to her about something like that. He didn't know if she was an anymore, but as they listened to the snores of the crew who had fallen asleep, he sure as hell knew she wasn't an ally. He wished he could have gone back in time five minutes ago and shut himself up as he sat quietly, closing his eyes in embarrassment and shame-

"When I was, like, I dunno...eight-ish? My mother was killed by a fleet of Fire Nation soldiers who came to my tribe," Katara explained, almost nonchalantly. It was his tale for hers, and she knew that - Zuko felt a little relieved, listening quietly. "They were looking for me, the last Southern waterbender. My mother lied and said it was her and they killed her on site."

There was a pause, and Zuko felt her fingers twitch against his back that was pressed against them.

"When I was a kid, I didn't know I was the reason why she was dead, why me and my brother didn't grow up with a mum, why my dad was so distant and cold," Katara explained slowly, listening to herself. "I had to find out one day, when I grew up, and when I did...I couldn't look at myself in the ice. I couldn't look at my brother, at my father, at my mother's necklace. I was ashamed, disgusted with myself."

Zuko felt his stomach tense a little, because he had a feeling that after this conversation, he wouldn't see Katara the same way ever again.

"Anyway, when I was about twelve...well, there's this lake sheathed in ice a couple miles from tribe, the coldest part we knew of - forty seconds is enough to shut down your body and kill you," Katara explained slowly, visiting the memory as she told him. "In the middle of the night, when it was even colder, I went out there. I made a hole in the ice with my bending."

She paused, and Zuko heard her swallow - she found this more difficult to say than to deal with emotionally.

"I looked at the water, at my reflection, and I...I jumped in," Katara managed, her face twisting like she'd tasted something bitter. "I jumped in because I didn't just kill my own mother. I killed a part of my brother, of my father, of myself. A life for a life - it made sense, didn't it?"

Zuko was absolutely quiet, unintentionally fixated on a wrinkle of clothes as he listened intently.

Katara laughed quietly, bitterly. "I made it about twenty-five seconds - and I could _feel _myself dying...it was the weirdest thing," Katara said quietly, slowly. She chuckled to herself at the memory. "But my brother pulled me out, screaming and crying in my face and wrapping me in his parka like I was a newborn. I...I cried with him."

Zuko still didn't say anything, sitting completely still as the words soaked in.

"Grief, it's...it's a uncontrollable thing." she stated slowly in thought.

"Look, I..." Zuko shook his head, not knowing what to say. He didn't feel like he'd earned the right to say her name yet.

"It's okay," she laughed, despite its sadism. "I'll get back my mother's life some other way."

He moved his fingers so that they were against her back, and he stroked her gently with his knuckle, since it was the only thing he could give her, and he wasn't really much of a touchy person anyway. When she felt it, those feather-like stroke against the fabric of her shirt, she'd never felt such an urge to hold someone's hand before.

She reciprocated, doing the same with her own hand against his back, comforting each other, because, differences aside, they were fighting against, loosing against, occasionally victorious against the exact same things.

Themselves.

The silence that follows isn't uncomfortable - they each hold onto the shirt on the back of the other.

.

She couldn't see the moon, since it was behind her on Zuko's side, but she didn't need to.

Zuko was nodding off, even though she knew he was trying his hardest to fall asleep. His 'waiting 'til dawn plan' would've worked if he hadn't been so beaten up, if she could heal him subtly like she did herself, without the crew of men knowing. But for a firebender, a child of the sun, he put up a good fight against sleep. Katara found herself smiling as his voice withered as he tried uphold some conversation, as she heard the light 'thud' of his head falling against the tree.

And then the moon shone, reaching the highest point in the sky.

There was no mistakening the sheer power than ran through her veins like gold, practically lifting up her spine so that she was taller, brighter, riddled with so much strength that she could barely sit comfortably on the dirt. Katara inhaled the air, the night, the water that surrounded her in its many forms, the faint smell of Zuko that rested behind her through the thin bark.

With a sharp exhale, the tree withered into water, vanishing.

Zuko awoke as his head flew back from the sudden loss of support, with a start but Katara caught his shoulders, propping him up, using some of the water the tree gave her to encase his body in water. Zuko tried to get up, to help as he saw her dash to the sleeping men, but the water held him still, calming him to the point where he had no control. He guessed that maybe he was a lot more injured that he'd initially thought as he closed his eyes, feeling the cool liquid on him.

Katara was glad that Zuko didn't struggle, because he was in absolutely no position to fight. That brief second before she was tied to the tree behind him, she saw the ghastly wounds the vicious men bestowed upon him, and most of her time up until this point was hoping those wounds wouldn't get infected. She thought this as she tiptoed around the sleeping men, closing her eyes, concentrating.

She located that little pressure point in their neck and severed it, making them fall unconscious in sleep.

She hesitated, wondering if she should use their blood to break their own necks and kill them but decided against it - she had many people on her list, but these men weren't one of them, despite their disgusting jobs or behaviour.

Katara made her way back to Zuko again, and he was finally able to look at her properly; she had a thick layer of water hovering over her face, healing the place she'd been hit, like other places in her body. She didn't wear her blue tribal clothing he'd only ever seen her in - instead, she wore the clothes of an Earth Kingdom commoner, but she was fooling absolutely no one.

Her eyes glowed, practically alight; though her hair was disheveled, it framed her face charmingly, flowing over shoulder like the goddesses Zuko's mother read from the books he'd grown up with as a child. She had a semi smirk on her dark pink lips as she flicked her wrist, removing the now bloodied water from him. The stubble on his jaw and the glint in his eyes was so charming she could barely resist from doing something reckless.

Because this now smirking ex-Prince wasn't the same Zuko she knew as she helped him up, finding it strange having to look up at him as he hovered over her, and Katara wondered why she'd never noticed the substantial height difference. They paused for a minute before laughing quietly at each other.

"Glad I was of such use," Zuko grinned down at her.

She grinned back. "I couldn't let you fight with a nearly festered wound," she reasoned rather lightly, pulling something out of her pocket; a few small loves of bread wrapped in thick leaves. "I know it's not much, but you need it - at least until you get to the next village. Your body is so malnourished I don't even know how you're standing right now-"

"What about you?" Zuko hesitated, looking down at the bread in her hands. His stomach disagreed with conscious loudly, and she laughed at the blush that invaded his pale cheeks.

"I'm a Water Tribe peasant, remember? I was born and raised in the art of hunting," Katara smirked up at him, pressing her bread into his hands and enclosing his fingers around it. "I'll be fine, I promise. I've fed myself through tougher times."

He had no other choice but to take her word for it as they both located their own possessions, Zuko laying the bread amongst his clothes carefully. They both paused as they looked at each other; their muddied faces and messy hair, their half grins illuminated by the light of the moon that gleamed down at them with approval. It was the first time Zuko had ever desperately hoped he'd see someone again - least of all, her.

The watervbender shrugged, her gaze softening at him. "I'll see you around...Zuko."

The name was so foreign to her lips, because she'd never said it in this way before. He nodded at her and they looked at each other again, exchanging one last smile before heading off in their separate directions. Zuko looked back, pausing.

"Hey, Katara," he called, and even though it was quiet, she turned. He looked right at her. "Your mother would've been proud of you."

There was a second of silence, and he could hear her smiling faintly. "So would yours."

And they resumed walking, and Zuko hoped that one day, they wouldn't have to run away from themselves anymore.

* * *

AU - just before Zuko gets to that Earth Kingdom village in 'Zuko Alone', he's kidnapped, along with Katara. I'll leave it up to your imaginations as to why Katara left Aang and the lot.

Requested my Doctor Anthony's nephew **Andrew** - hoped you enjoyed reading this as much as I loved writing it. :)

- Yin


	19. Atonement

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Atonement **

**'A·tone·ment'** - Reparation for a wrong

It's become a ritual of sorts.

She wanders out in the middle of the night whilst everyone else is so asleep they're practically dead; tiptoeing beneath the stars, the moon being her witness, Katara slips out of the palace and finds herself in the courtyard, in the deserted area where no one bothers to go, since it isn't adorned with pretty flowers. She sits on the grass by herself, staring up at the blackened sky, silent.

Sometimes she thinks, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she sings, sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she bends her water calmly, and other times, she's whipping it around like a knife from the absolute rage for many, many things. And sometimes, only a sometimes, does she cry. She can never really predict what happens when she finds herself there, every night.

What she _can _predict, though, is Zuko and his perfect timing.

She doesn't know why he's up, what he's doing, whether he does the same things she does but in a different place, nor does she care. But every single night, without fail, they meet at the bottom of the grand staircase. It's in blackness, since the curtains are drawn and the moonlight is blocked out. Some nights they smile to each other, other nights they don't. But none of that matters, because once Zuko ignites an ember in his palm, every other thought flees.

He leads her through the halls of the palace, and some nights they talk to each other, and some nights they don't. That one flame captivates her, mesmerizes her in a way she never thought fire could. It sits in his hand, floating above it, so controlled yet so spirited at the same time. It's shakes and convulses with every breath, with every whisper, and every night, without fail, Zuko smiles at how enthralled she is by one flame.

After he leads her to her room, and she kisses his cheek goodnight like he does her, everything is forgotten in the morning, where their friends are laughing and joking over breakfast. They act no different, sharing the light hearted humour that cannot find its way into their nights.

And it's all fine and wonderful and perfect, until one day. Or should she say, one evening.

She sees Zuko there, just as everyone gets ready for bed, sitting on some sofa with Mai. He's smiling along, totally oblivious to what Katara can see, to what Mai is doing, smirking like that at him, touching his arm, whispering into his ear. But that's not what bothers her - even though it actually bothers her a _lot _more than she'd like to admit.

It's the fact that his palm is upturned, a flame sitting there against the darkness, illuminating the night as the two sit and talk to one another, before Mai decides to saunter off to bed like the others, swaying her hips far more than what is necessary.

Katara waits until it's the night, until it's her time; it doesn't take much searching until she finds herself tapping against Zuko's bedroom door feverishly. He opens it with a confused look, and just before he can smile at the mere sight of her, she tackles him, kicking the door shut behind her with her foot, freezing his wrists to the thick, marroon carpet.

"Katara, what the _hell_-?!" Zuko hissed, unable to shout due to the late hour.

"Shut up and listen to me." Katara snapped into his face.

She has her knees on either side of his body, squeezing him together uncomfortably as she holds herself up over him, her hands on either side of his head as he struggles a little at his bound wrists. She's snarling in a way that Zuko doesn't know whether to call cute or terrifying, azure eyes alight with anger.

"You are _my _fire," Katara states firmly, and Zuko has to bite back a huge grin that threatens to erupt across his face and potentially end his life. Katara sees this and glares, pressing her knees closer together so he hisses in pain. He feels her soft curls tickle his face as it falls towards the ground.

She's not mad because she's overdramatic, even though that is _definately _what it looks like - and Zuko knows that. He knows now that walking the halls with a single ember _means _something to her, that it's something she holds dear to her, and seeing him offering it out to another person (another _girl) _touches that part of her that is reluctant to let go or say goodbye to or share the things she loves.

"Didn't think you to be the jealous type," Zuko said through a wince. He shuffled against the floor as she continued to glare down at him, adorably furious, shuffling against the cold ice that is pressed against the insides of his wrist. "What do you _call _this anyway-?!"

"Atonement," Katara spat out again.

"And what did I do wrong?" He asked, holding in his grin - Zuko knew the answer, he just wanted her to say it.

Which he knew was a mistake the second she pressed her knees closer together, making him buckle in discomfort.

"You _know,_" Katara snarled. Her eyes falter a little, and he sees the insecurity she is so frightened to acknowledge. "They way she looks at you, the way she..._treats _you. She favours you. Probably because she still loves you-"

He curls his fingers and sends little flames to the ice shackles of his wrists before grabbing her and flipping her over with a smirk, his own shaggy hair now falling down to her. She's still scowling despite the fact that he laced their fingers together. They know that what they have isn't friendship, but that's the only thing that's clear. Beyond that, they haven't delved into what _this _was - Katara growling in his face and Zuko smirking in hers.

"That's a shame," Zuko breathes into her face, over her dark pink lips that are parted in confusion. She's still looking at him like he's playing a trick, even as he looks her right in the eyes. "...since I'm in love with another girl."

She _hates _the fact that the corner of her lips tug up.

Then she blinks.

"You do mean me, right?" she asks in confirmation, already scowling at the thought that it could be some other woman she doesn't know.

Zuko resists the urge to burst out laughing as he kisses her as an answer, leaning down, pressing his pale lips against hers lightly, so she knows he's serious, that he means it, that this isn't a joke, and that this time, there is no room for betrayal.

* * *

AU - I don't even know. Everyone lives in the palace..? Even Mai..? Katara gets jealous..? I don't know. Make it up yourself, because this is honestly just word vomit.

Okay, so this was suggested by **Thunder **- though I enjoyed writing this, I have to be honest. So don't judge me, people.

I had no flipping idea what the word 'atonement' meant before this was prompted. At first, I wasn't comfortable writing about a word I knew nothing about, and even when given a definition, I _still _didn't understand how to use the word properly. I asked, like, everyone I knew for examples, googled it millions of times, and I'm pretty sure I still didn't even use it in the correct context.

I know this whole chapter probably makes no sense, but I tried! I'm sorry, okay?!

So, there you have it. A sixteen year old girl who still has no idea how to even use the word atonement after having written an entire chapter for the word itself. I'm a fail, I know. I KNOW.

Oh, and thanks for all the support by the way! It makes happy :)

- Yin


	20. Sickness

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Sickness **

She is by far the most stubborn, immovable, tenacious women he has ever come across.

"I am _not _sick," she growled out with a snarl, blue eyes glittering as she pushed herself out of their bed, controlling her shaking knees as best as she could, and he could see her radical blinking as she fought against her migrane. "I do _not _get sick. I haven't been sick since I was fourteen, and I don't plan on it now, Fire Lord."

She practically barks out the words as she straightens herself, and he's impressed by how well she was keeping herself from falling over or stumbling around their room, but it doesn't stop him from rolling his eyes at her inability to accept her mistakes. She's glad her back is turned, for she winces at the concentrated pain at her temples when she flicks some hair over her shoulder. She tries to cough discreetly into her hand, but it unravels a little into a prolonged one.

"You do know it's _normal _to get sick, right?" Zuko asked quite honestly, sitting up in their bed, folding his arms over his bare chest. "Stop being so hard headed and get back here. You're going to get yourself killed and rid me of a wife, of this nation of their Fire Lady-"

"That's what Spirit Oasis water is for," she chided, and the grin on her face was practically infectious, since it found its way to Zuko's mouth even without his consent.

"I'd rather not risk it," Zuko said firmly, or at least he tried, as he swung his legs over the bed and marched over to her, practically picking up her small body and dumping her back into their bed gently, despite her weak struggling that rendered her useless. He grabbed her wrists with a smile, kissing the inside of one before looking her in the eyes again, dark hair splayed about the bed. "I mean it. _Stay here._"

She turned her head away with a scowl, pushing him away weakly, that would've sent him stumbling if she'd been at full health. Zuko could only laugh at her weakness, which made her even angrier as she fought her way out of his soft grip, winding herself in their duvet as he continued to watch her with a smirk on his lips.

"You're going to regret the day you gave me this order, you know." she said into his pillow, trying to sound annoyed. As if on cue, much to Katara's pleasure, their son started wailing from the other adjoined room, waking his not-so-older sister in the process.

The triumphant grin on her face made Zuko groan as he hauled himself up, trudging to the nursery.

"I know." he growled, but he couldn't help but smile when he heard her laughing.

* * *

AU - the royal family. In my little Zutara world, this is my dream.

Okay, so I don't know who this was requested by, for there was no name! :( Anyways, whoever you are, thank you for the prompt! Writing short little plotless fics are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine! Thanks for making my night :)

- Yin


	21. Reconciliation (II)

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Reconciliation **

"We're out of milk..." Katara called from the other side of the flat.

Zuko rolled over with a groan, eyes peeking open to see her in their tiny kitchen, biting her lip as she tries to reach for something on the top shelf, but finding it difficult due to her petite size. She raises herself on the highest points of her toes, waterfall of dark curls swinging behind her back as she growls in irritation, taking water from a nearby vase of flowers and using it as an arm to pull the whatever-it-was towards her.

Zuko snorts at her from their sleeping mat and she turns to blush at him with meek smile of her own, since she didn't know he was watching her. She hissed at the coldness of the kitchen worktop as it grazed her exposed waist, since she was only wearing her wrappings as she strolled over back to their sleeping mat again, plonking down beside the firebender who rolled back over to watch her as she took a bite from a pear.

"We'll have to go out and get some," she said between mouthfuls, propping herself up on her elbow on her pillow as Zuko did the same, twirling a piece of her hair in around his finger, golden eyes fixated on it. "Plus, there's no bread either. And since that's basically our diet, we _definitely _have to get some."

Zuko's eyes flickered to hers with a grin, cheek pushed up against the palm that held it. Katara rolled her eyes at his childishness as she offered him a bite of her pear, but found herself grinning, laughing, even, as he used the aversion to drag her small frame to his one, his lips in her hair as she lays a hand on his bare chest, the pear laying forgotten on her side of the mat, Zuko's arm curling around her.

"How about we only leave this mat unless absolutely necessary," Zuko says semi seriously, hearing her laugh into his neck as he plays with her hair with his free hand, smiling. "Like, in a life or death situation."

"This _is _a life or death situation!" she chides with a smile, her lips pressing against his throat lightly, words a little muffled by it, and Zuko can feel her smile there, so delicate and pure. "We need food, Zuko. It's kind of an essential thing in order to live-"

"Have you _been _outside?!" Zuko spluttered. "It's _freezing_. No, _below _freezing. I can't even handle the idea of getting out of this mat, let alone leaving the house-"

"You swam around in the Northern Tribe and you call this freezing?!" Katara retaliated with a smirk. She slipped out of his hold and pulled his wrists with her to standing position, rolling her eyes as he blew fire into his hands, tossing him a shirt. "I'm not having this argument with you again - we've been in bed all day. We have to get out of here _sometime_-"

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

"And traipsing around the city at night as the Blue Spirit and some spirit lady _does not _count!"

He pulls on a shirt in a huff as she puts on some clothes, too - plain and simple Earth Kingdom attire. If it wasn't for her striking beauty, she may have fit into the dullness of their little flat, but it hardly mattered. They had lived in so many places since six months ago, but this one, this little place that had no heating and not even a bed - it was right. It was home. It was perfection, even though it wasn't adorned in wealth and cuisine.

But they knew that their young, newly found comfort came more from who they are with, and not where they live.

Zuko makes it a point of thinking about it every day, because he doesn't want to forget what he has - _who _he has. He watches her run her fingers through her long, curly hair, wincing at the many knots she encounters from all his twiddling. The mirror she looks into is more of a shard than anything, and as she ties her hair up, she smiles at him through it, and he knows she's just as happy as he is. He smiles to himself as he buttons his shirt up, listening to her humming.

This world they've created -

Of small, dull flats, moving from place to place, living on rationed coins, sleeping beside each other in the unheated apartment

- it's a world with no regrets.

.

They saunter through the market stalls like they have no destination, which, in essence, they didn't.

Their fingers are wound together like thread, and Zuko presses his lips to the back of her hand, watching her look at a navy necklace that sits in one of the stalls, sparkling against the light of the setting sun. One day, he hoped he could buy it for her, put it around her neck and make her happy to have it, even if it was only for a while. But he had his whole life to work for money to buy her things, so Zuko doesn't feel guilty as he drags her away gently to a fruit stall.

"Papaya, miss?" the man at the stall offers.

Zuko stifles a snort as she watches her wrinkle her nose. "No, thank you."

"She _hates _papaya," Zuko explained with a grin playing at his lips as he thinks back to the time when he learnt such a fact about her, picking up an apple and inspecting it lazily. "But five of these would be great, please."

Katara's scowl eventually weakens to small grin, since he finds her a reason to start laughing again soon enough. The sun has almost disappeared over the horizon, and even though there weren't many left in the market place, it was still alive and bubbling, still riddled with the glee of a newly ended war that could've been their victory, too. But it wasn't.

She scratched her collar bone, like she always did when she thought about her friends (although, she didn't know if she could call them that anymore). It was because that was where her necklace would've been, if she hadn't have taken it off. Zuko is not numb to the nostalgia, either; he scratches his temple, his scarred temple, wondering where it would've led him if had been a different city, a different time, a different underground cave with a different girl.

"Nothing," he says quietly to himself. But he's saying it to her too, in a way. "I'd change nothing."

She believes him; just because it felt bad didn't mean it _was._ They turn the corner just as she grips his hand, her answer silently agreeing, supporting, because they are a team in this game, even though it had now ended. As they make their way back down the street, to their flat on the side of the city, they smell the tea coming from the shops heartily, giving scent to the orange, vibrant skies.

"Nothing," she says to herself, barely any sound coming from her lips. "Nothing at all."

And it just about fades, that sour little feeling. It almost vanishes, but then hear the doors of one of the shops open, of a few shuffling feet, of that thumping silence that's telling them to turn around, forcing them to almost drop the half eaten apples on the floor.

"Katara?" she hears, and she knows that voice.

"Z-Zuko?" he hears, and he knows that voice.

They're quite for a second, unable to even feel horrified as they turn around slowly to look at their gawking former friends. And immediately, the thoughts fly between the waterbender and firebender; where will they move to next? Will they have the money? Would they have to get another job? Could they even stay in the Earth Kingdom now? If not, then where to next?

Katara forces herself to look her brother, Toph and Aang in the eye, clutching onto Zuko's hand as he fights to look into the irises of his Uncle too, silence drifting between them heavily as they just looked back with semi blank faces, their brows starting to furrow as they feel each other's palms grow sweaty, which just makes them clutch onto each other tighter.

"What are you doing here?" Sokka breathed, his head shaking in confusion, blue eyes hazy with hurt. "Better yet...why aren't you with us? Why did you..?"

"How could you do that to us, Katara?" Aang said quietly, grey eyes twinkling as he looked at her face again, the face he dreamed of after so long. In her plain clothes simple hairstyle, she looked so foreign. So off. "What did...what did we do to make you-"

"It was nothing you did - it was nothing that happened, nothing you could control," she replied evenly, but there was a softness to her voice that Zuko hadn't heard in a long time. That guilt ridden quietness that had faded away over the past six months. "It was me. I...I wasn't okay with the choices I made. It's horrible and selfish and despicable, I know, but back then, Aang, I...I was living a lie-"

"And you call _this _living in reality?! Hiding away in Ba Sing Se and forget about who you are?!" Toph growled out, her face scrunching from furstration, from that little part of her that twisted at her misplaced trust. "We're your _friends, _Katara, and you abandoned us like an old pet-"

"That's the thing, Toph!" Katara said firmly, her voice raised. Zuko glanced at her, feeling her hand start to tremble, seeing that familiar, subtle anguish slip back into the features of her face. "You _were _my friends, but then you started to become my _children._ When I was serving you, fighting for you, risking everything I had for you, I forgot that I could ask myself what _I _wanted-"

"You turned your back on the world, on _me, _your own flesh and blood, Katara!" Sokka cried, stepping forward. Katara's heart sank as she saw the tears prick his eyes, glistening as they gazed at her, his voice barely a whisper. "Do you know how sick I felt when I had to tell Dad you just left me? The look on Gran Gran's face when she found out her granddaughter was a traitor-"

Katara looked down, shaking her head. "I'm not a traitor, Sokka," she said slowly. She felt Zuko's thumb brush over her knuckles. "I just didn't need to save the world in order to be happy. I'd been taking care of everyone since I was eight, and I just wanted to do something for myself. I just wanted to rest, to find out who _I _am. I knew that if I stayed with you all, saved the world with you, I would never, ever have that."

"And you believe _he _can give you that?" Aang whispered, his eyes darting between her and the firebender, feeling the crisp breeze on his cheeks as the sun sank below the horizon behind him.

She didn't hesitate. "He already has."

"Is...is this true?" Iroh asked calmly, quietly, his eyes boring into that of his nephew's.

Zuko breathed in slowly, nodding. "Before the catacombs, I just wanted to be loved for who I was, not who I killed or captured. I wanted peace," he said evenly, and Iroh could sense that change in his voice, see it in his stance. "I know now, Uncle, that you are the only person who has ever truly believed in me, and for that, I thank you. But with you, with the Fire Nation, with my father, Azula, even with the position of Fire Lord...I would not be peaceful."

He paused, eyes flickering to his Uncle. "At least, I wouldn't find the same peace compared to what she gave me, now. I hope you can respect that," Zuko said, his shoulder brushing against hers as he changed his weight from foot to foot before his eyes drifted to Sokka, Aang and Toph. "We'll be okay. We'll take care of each other. And one day, we'll see you again. But for now...we need to finish healing."

There was a silence, before Toph growled and marched away, back into the tea shop adjacent to them. Aang's face crumpled, turning away as he shook his head in dismay. Iroh nodded slowly, looking at his nephew, and then at Katara, thankful at least that they had each other.

Sokka scowled bitterly. "Fine," he mumbled stiffly, turning. "Go."

Katara swallowed. "You'll understand one day." she said gently, before turning with Zuko and walking away.

They still gripped each other's hands like a lifeline, as the breeze whipped their hair about, their free hands holding onto the grocery bags as they walked back to their tiny flat slowly. They were quiet, but they both had one resounding word echoing through their heads as they walked the streets of a joy riddled, post-war Ba Sing Se, their foreheads touching at the door of their flats yet again as they whispered that word to each other, just to make sure.

"Nothing?" Zuko murmured, golden eyes hesitant and sorry as they looked into her blue ones. "Regret nothing at all?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck, bringing him down to her gently.

"Nothing." she mumbled into his lips.

* * *

AU - Sequel to Chapter 14, Traitor, where Zuko and Katara bump into their old allies once the war finishes, six months later. Though it was certainly a challenge coming up with this, I had fun writing it. Requested by **Doctor Anthony**.

- Yin


	22. Vengeance

**Vengeance**

_"All in all, justice and vengeance are two sides to the exact same coin." _

There's this weight in the room that sits upon everyone, every single person, except her. They're all tense, Zuko more than anyone, as they wait for the council's deliberation avidly, a bead of sweat sliding down the Fire Lord's temple. His eyes skitter over to her, her back straight, her expression straighter, a look of absolute anonymity resting within her blue eyes like a shadow, casting over her. Katara said and did nothing at all.

She makes it a point of looking not even the slightest bit apologetic - because she isn't.

"We deem the Fire Lady to be, Master Katara of the Southern Water Tribe," the elder announces. "Not guilty."

It takes everything in Zuko not to deflate and cry out from relief as he stands and bows, the elders leaving the council room after reciprocating, silently. Their friends all shoot her a look mixed with relief, with horror, with disgust, with gratitude to the somewhat lenient council members. Sokka can't look at her, and Aang has this disappointed look on his face that would have killed her a few years back. But the Katara that sits at this table is a different one.

"I hope you understand how lucky you are for getting away with that," Aang says sternly, grey eyes fixated on her, on the woman he loves so unconditionally. "I hope you understand what you have done."

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. "I am not a child, Aang. Stop talking to me like one."

"You _killed _a man of a crime that happened _thirteen years _ago," Sokka hissed with disgust, hurt flickering through his blue eyes as he looked at his sister. "If it wasn't for Zuko and his position as the Fire Lord, you'd be at the Boiling Rock right now."

She said nothing, because the last thing that Katara needed to do was explain herself. She makes it a point of looking in her brother and Avatar's eyes firmly, a hard look that tells them that the Katara they knew and the Katara here now were two very different people. Zuko takes her hand under the table and she squeezes it, because as of now, he is the single most important person to her in the world.

Not just because he's to be her husband, but because he is the only one who can understand this _properly. _

"I'd do it again." she stated swiftly.

Only when they leave the Palace and night has fallen does Katara allow herself to tear into a thousand pieces, threading her fingers through his hair as she clings to him in a desperate embrace, because she honestly just doesn't know how to thank him. When she pulls back, eyes brimming with tears as she runs her thumb over the edge of his scar, there's a tiny smile on his lips that practically shove the tears out of her eyes to trail down her cheeks.

"You keep saving me when I least deserve it," she whispers, her breath hitching against her throat as she pressed her forehead to his. She sniffed, pulling away again, feeling his swift fingers wipe away her tainted tears softly, lovingly.

Tears of a murderer.

"You're to be my _wife_," he whispered against her lips, listening to her cry quietly. "Slay a thousand nations and I'll still bail you out with my life."

* * *

AU - where Katara is put on trial for killing Yon Rha, her mother's murderer, a citizen and ex-veteran of the Fire Nation.

Requested by **Andrew, **quote by **Doctor Anthony**. I'm sorry for the short length of this, but my exams are going haywire and I just really wanted to write it, hope this still counts as a variation of your prompt. And I'm also sorry for not having as much of the quote as I could have - I couldn't really dedicate as much time as I would have wanted to, but hey, I tried my best.

Just wanted to take the time to say thank to each and every one of you who read, favourite, review, etc. You have no idea how much it means to me. Because of swell people like you, I hope I'll keep writing for the majority of my life. Your feedback lights my world up, I swear! :)

- Yin


	23. Her

**Her **

When Zuko saunters into his daughter's room, a moon-peach in both hands, he has this sly smirk on his face, because he couldn't actually believe he managed to swipe two of the fresh, perfectly ripe fruit from the kitchen stalls so early before dinner, even if he _was _the Fire Lord. He was glad that his daughter had inherited his love for the particular fruit, but as he closed the door gently behind him, turning to see her cry at her desk quietly, his grin falls.

He is totally stunned and silent, the fruit falling from his now relaxed palm as he watched her. She was very nearly the spitting image of her mother, with her long, dark curls and fierce blue eyes. If her skin hadn't been such a fair, caramel skin complexion, he wouldn've thought it was Katara, her hand pressed against her forehead right then and there - either way, Zuko was still inexplicably livid at whoever did this to her.

"Baby?" he asked briskly rushing to her. "What happened? Are you alright? Who did this to you-?!"

Zaika lept out of her chair before her baffled father could gather her into his arms, her face damp with tears, twisted into a bitter, hurt expression that made Zuko's insides knot together horribly. His brow furrowed in horror as he watched his fourteen year old daughter shake her head as she let another sob escape from her throat, her blue eyes slicing through him just like her mother's once had.

"You _lied _to me, dad," she hissed quietly, her voice cracking as she looked up at her father. Zuko buckled under her gaze, his face twisting in confusion and hurt, watching another tear slip from his daughter's eye. "You told me Mum died from a horrific _fever _- you told me she got ill and then passed away when I was only a _baby. _How could _lie _to _me _for so long about something like _that_-"

"Zai..." Zuko breathed sighing heavily. He licked his lips as he listened to her sniff, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand roughly. He absolutely _loathed _seeing her cry, not just because she was his daughter, but because she looked so much like Katara, and he had hated seeing her cry, too. "Baby, listen to me-"

"I killed her," she breathed, her voice barely audible as her cerulean eyes brimmed with tears again as she looked away from her father. "How can you tell me about her all this time, make me feel like I _know _her when I haven't even _met _her, and not tell me that I took all that _away from you, _that I took away the woman you loved so much-"

She paused, looking up at Zuko's horrified face. "How can you stand to look at me when I look like her, when I _killed my own mother_-"

"Zaika, listen to me," Zuko said firmly, grabbing her daughter's shoulders as he knelt down in front of her, forcing her to look at him. Zaika's petite body trembled in her father's hands, the guilt racking over her in a way she never thought any emotion could. "Never _ever _question what your mother did to bring you here to me. She loved you so, _so _much - hell, if she didn't, you wouldn't be here right now."

He wiped the tears from her cheeks gently as he continued. "You're my whole _life, _Zai," Zuko said gently. "When I look at you, see you waterbend, see you argue or laugh or heal someone, it's like she never left. In a way, I didn't loose anything at all, because she gave me _you_. You are proof that she never died - you're my entire world, Zaika. Half my soul-mate lives in you."

What he said didn't stop her from crying as she threw herself into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably into his extravagant Fire Lord's robes. Zuko rocked her gently, just like he did when she was a baby, stroking her hair gently as he blinked away the tears in his golden eyes. Today was one of those days when thinking about his late wife hurt a little more than usual. It was days like this when he wished Katara was still around.

She was always good at taking care of people.

* * *

AU - where Katara died at childbirth, and their daughter finds out at fourteen. And she takes the news just like her mother, in the sense that she blamed herself, like Katara did for Kya's death. I think that given some time and practice, Zuko would be an absolutely amazing father.

I hear that it was Mother's Day not long ago in the US - so I guess I'll dedicate this fic to all the mothers out there. The ones with us now and the ones that aren't. I have myself have no idea who or where I'd be if it wasn't my mum.

- Yin

P.S. Sorry if it weird you out that I spell it 'mum' and not 'mom'. I'm from the UK. Sue me. *winky face*


	24. Strange

**Strange**

It was cute at first - the way Zuko would stay up late reading maternity books, look through booklets of baby clothing, ordering special wood to construct a grand crib when he found out she was carrying. In fact, she even found it quite amusing, the way he would pester the midwives with endless questions at check ups, the way he fashioned a tiny crown for the head of his child, the way he would lay a hand on her stomach protectively whilst they were sleeping.

It was all cute and amusing and frankly, rather entertaining to watch Zuko look (and pale) at the birthing scrolls made for healers when going through their training; but then, Katara started to become a little uncomfortable, for his sweet, soothing words spoken to her stomach became incessant chatter.

"I know you don't know what I'm saying, and think I'm like an alien or something, but I'm your daddy," Zuko said to his wife's slightly swollen stomach. He was stretched out across the bed as Katara laid there, trying to sleep, but finding it very difficult to do so.

"I'm pretty nervous, because the only man in my family that I know that's a real, non-psycho father is my Uncle," the Fire Lord continued, propping his chin up on his palm, elbows resting on the bed. "But nonetheless, I'll protect you and take care of you, do the best I can, since I'm pretty sure I love you just as much as your mother, and that's a _lot,_ considering I haven't even seen you yet. Agni, you could have, like, rhino-monkey horns and I wouldn't know-"

Katara growled as she rolled over and away from her husband, grabbing a pillow and putting it over her ears to drown out his incessant voice. The two seconds of silence and shuffling indicated that he had gotten the message, and so her eyes flickered closed.

"- but I'll still love you, regardless of your potential animal-like features, I promise." Zuko started again, having walked round to her end of the bed kneeling on the floor to lean on the bed as he continued to talk to her stomach. "You know, lots of people, including your mother, think you're going to be a bender. Wouldn't that be interesting? A waterbending or firebending baby with rhino-monkey horns?"

"_Zuko!_" Katara hissed loudly, a snarl spread across her face.

His golden eyes flickered up to her innocently. "What?"

**... **

And then, Katara started to become extremely irritated - for her husband started to have full on conversations with their unborn baby.

"You know, I was thinking, with the amount your mother eats, you're probably going to come out extremely...padded," Zuko finished, and Katara practically slammed her plate down at the table in rage. "I mean, it's great for me and everything, because I think the fatter the cuter - however, _I'm_ not the one who has to pass you through my vagina. Not that I have a vagina; if I did, I wouldn't be your dad, and you wouldn't be here - you'll understand when you're older."

Katara shot him an incredulous look of absolute disbelief, glad that nobody was currently in the dining area to hear the Fire Lord speak so crudely. However, the twenty-five year old was totally oblivious to his wife's sharp looks, leaning against the table as he looked down at her now very apparent, rounded stomach.

"I worry for your mother, too - Agni, I'm _always _worrying for your mother," Zuko continued, twirling his fork around his finger. "Childbirth scares me _so _much. Like, I can't even listen to Suki's birthing stories - that's your aunt, by the way - so how am I going to cope when I see your mother in that much pain? Despite how much it freaks me out, I kinda wish I could do it for her instead. She's the first thing I've ever loved, the _only _thing I've ever loved - well, before you of course."

Katara couldn't help but smile into her plateful of fruit at this, blue eyes flickering up to her husband who was still fixated on her stomach.

"But back to the overeating thing," Zuko said, rubbing his stubbled chin in thought. "I've come up with a plan - I was thinking, you're due to start kicking soon, right? Well, why don't you just kick her every time she reaches for another egg-custard tart-?"

"_Zuko!_" Katara cried in fury, throwing her fork down. "I'm sitting _right here._"

He blinked at her.

**...**

And only after that did Katara groan at the sight of her husband walking into a room - because by now, he had basically forgotten her existence.

"Hey, baby!" he cooed softly, his smile weary from his fatigue as he pulled the clip from his hair and collapsed onto the bed beside his heavily pregnant wife, removing his outer robes, throwing them on the floor. Katara's eyes lit up, wondering if he wanted to talk to _her _for a change as she closed her book.

She smiled looking down at him. "Hey," she chirped. "How was your da-"

"I had _longest _day today," Zuko started, eyes cast down to her very prominent stomach. He reached out and laid a hand there as Katara huffed, picking up her book again. "Honestly, I would give _anything _for a uterus right now, just so I could get a couple weeks off work. Work _sucks. _I'd much rather spend my day talking to you and your mother-"

"What mother?!" Katara snapped, glaring at him. "You never, _ever _speak to me! Too busy with your new friend over here-"

"I'm just making pleasant conversation with our child - is there something wrong with that?" Zuko countered with a frown.

"Yes! Yes there is!" Katara seethed, snapping her book shut. "I'm so sick of being ignored, Zuko! Actually, that doesn't even bother me that much - what _does _bother me is when you decide to gossip about me _to our baby_-"

"It's hardly _gossiping_-"

"Doesn't matter! You seem to forget the fact that your child is _inside _your wife who can hear every damn thing you say!" she hissed, not caring if her hormones took control of her tongue - it was his fault, anyway. "And I'm pretty sure our baby is getting sick of you as well-"

"Then why does it keep kicking?!" Zuko retorted, placing his hands on either sides of her stomach to feel the small thuds that responded, a triumphant grin on his face. "_See_? It's kicking because it _likes _to hear me talk-"

"She's _kicking _because she's imagining your face in front of her foot!" Katara barked.

Zuko stiffened. "She?"

Katara groaned. "Look, it's just a theory, me and the other healers don't know for sure-"

"It's a girl?! Is it a girl?!" Zuko asked frantically, a huge grin spreading over his features, lighting up his golden eyes. "Are we...are we having a daughter?!"

She sighed. "Well, we're all _pretty _sur-"

"Oh my _Agni_ you're a _girl_," Zuko whispered in excitement as he pressed the tip of his nose to his wife's rounded stomach. "I've always wanted a daughter! Not like an Azula kind, but a Katara kind - you're going to be _so cute,_ with my eyes and her hair..."

Katara couldn't help but smile as Zuko laid his head gently on her abdomen.

"...and massive, chubby little arms and legs that are a product of my wife's far too regular eating habits-"

Katara couldn't quite help herself as she punched her husband in the chest.

* * *

AU - Zuko gets a little too attached to Zutara-baby-to-be. And Katara hates that.

This was so, so, SO fun to write. I should really start studying...

- Yin

P.S. I wrote this a while ago just in case I wouldn't have anything to update with one day, since exams are so crazy. Never thought I'd end up using it so soon...


	25. Designed

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

* * *

**Designed **

She doesn't know what it is about him, but she can't keep her eyes off of him.

Zuko tossed a few balls of fire to the already panting Avatar lazily, like sparring was a game he had mastered years ago, but it still makes Aang yelp and clap his hands together, using a gust of air to send him hurtling to the side to evade the attack. Katara sat upon the steps, watching the firebender's every move - it isn't in awe or wonder or even disgust. He's simply enthralling to analyse, and she couldn't help that.

Zuko rolled his eyes, watching Aang summon a string of fire slowly and messily; Katara watched the way his shirtless torso tenses briefly, his toned, swollen bicep contract for a second before Zuko grunts and punches his fist forward, a blast of fire hurtling to the unsettled airbender that scurried away from the blazing stream of light, stomping up a wall of earth to protect his small body.

Katara's blue eyes skittered to the ex-Prince, and she honestly didn't know what it was. There was something about Zuko when he would firebend; this poise, this grace, this steadiness in his golden, twinkling eyes that just couldn't be ignored. His body was a weapon, toned and rigid muscle covered in flawless porcelain skin, the scar on his face like a comet. His eyes drift to hers lazily as he waits for Aang to summon another attack, and he winks at her, a tiny smirk on his lips as that rare, playful side of him slips through the cracks today.

Though Katara rolls her eyes, her stomach flips, her heart thudding in her ears.

Her mother had always told her that out of everyone in the war, the waterbenders were the ones who had it the hardest, simply because it was so much more difficult for them to hate firebenders, their natural opposite. She had told Katara that fire and water were _designed _for each other, _made _to be attracted to one another; without one, the other couldn't exist. They were destined to intertwine, fated to collide in steam by the gods themselves.

This is the only reason why Katara excuses her blank staring as she watches the almost seventeen year old draw in a sharp breath, holding it for a minute so that he could flare his inner fire and then release a massive gust of fire from his mouth, forcing Aang to propel himself into the air to dodge it and come plummeting back down onto the stoned floor, barely able to stop himself from crashing against it.

"You have to stop being afraid to attack me," Zuko called out in his deep voice, folding his muscled arms together. Aang groaned, rubbing his lower back that had taken the fall. "And you have to stop being afraid of fire - it's a part of who you are."

"You almost burnt me alive, like, fifty times!" Aang called back from the other side of, marching away from the sparring area, still panting and glistening in sweat under the setting sun. "There's no non-firebender I know who's not afraid of fire, Zuko-"

Katara smiled at the young boy's words as she pulled her hair out of its bun to fall over her shoulders. Aang gave her a look as she sauntered past him, resuming his place on the stoned surface in front of Zuko, at least fifteen paces ahead of him. "My turn."

Zuko doesn't quite know what to make of her as she stands opposite him like that, unable to stop that little hiss from escaping under his breath as she strips off her outer layer of clothing to reveal only herself in her wrappings, dark curls falling over her shoulder, brushing over her jaw as she continues to watch him. But there's this little smirk that manages to ghost over his features as he focuses on his inner fire again, attaining a stance.

"Watch and learn from her, kid," Zuko said in his deep voice, still looking at her with glistening amber eyes. "Learn to kill your fear for fire."

Jumping and slamming his hands together, Zuko sent a ferocious wall of flames charging at the waterbender, hearing the 'oohs' and 'aahs' of his friends that are sitting beside Aang on the steps as they watch the sheet of burning oranges and yellows hurtle to lick at Katara's skin; he swears he can hear her chuckle as she slides her foot and cocks her elbow, sending all the water vapour in the area to rush to her aid, leaving nothing but a thin mist behind.

Zuko's muscles itch to swing his legs and let out the true, unmerciful fire within him now that he has a true opponant, and he does. The only reason why he fights to kill her and no one else is solely because he _knows _he cannot kill her no matter how hard he tries. Katara pulls at the plants around them until they're deadened or disappeared, sending around twenty thin arms of water soaring over to him, weaving through his flames with ease before grabbing his ankles.

The ex-Prince splutters when the vines wrench at his ankles, throwing him painfully against his back; he thrusts his body so that it spins, fire at his heels so that it curls around him, as he hoped to burn off or at least evaporate the arms of water that had a tight grip on his ankles. He feels the absence of water on his joints and readies to jump up and create a firewheel - and then Katara is straddling him suddenly, her dark hair a curtain over the side of her face as she winds water around his body and freezes him there, her blue eyes twinkling.

Even though Zuko struggles underneath her, messy ebony hair spread out over the stone under his head, it is hard not to keep looking at him. She can see every crevice of his skin; the marred lines of his scar, his passionate eyes framed with furrowed, frustrated brows, perfect pale skin that coats his face, his toned physique that is muscled and perfected. He looks up at her for a second, right into her eyes, and he doesn't know whether to blush or grin at her.

He gathered his strength and threw her off of him, using the propelling motion to summon flames to lick at the frozen vines that curl around his body and free him before he slams Katara's petite body against the stone, his warm breath panting down into her face as he holds her wrists firmly in his large hands above her head. The irritated look on her face only makes Zuko grin, knees either side of her tightening to keep her body in place.

It's strange, because even though she'd been staring at Zuko for so long now, his arms, his neck, his face, his hair, his stomach, his chest - she never really took into consideration what all of that would be like if he was on top of her, holding her down like this. She can see the sweat trickle down his defined arms, his hair tickling her cheeks and forhead at how close her was, his breath warm against her face as she growls, hearing Sokka start to yell at the firebender that was currently atop of his sister in a rather innappropriate manner.

"Too confident, peasant," Zuko breathed out between smirking lips. They're a pale pink colour, fuller than what a boy's should be, and Katara can pick out the little speckled, dark hairs of stubble that run along his jaw. His golden eyes bore into her as she pants in frustration underneath him, his amber orbs unsettling her stomach like the way fire burned the skin of others.

Katara drew in a sharp breath, and Zuko peered at her in confusion before realizing what she was doing; gathering the sweat from his face, neck, chest, arms, anywhere that was close to her, she pulled it towards her and held it for a fraction of a second before blowing out sharply, throwing and freezing it into Zuko's face. He eyes were frozen shut, along with his mouth and most of his face, only his nostrils left open for breath as Katara threw his large body over, resuming her place above him.

Ignoring her brother's ranting, she leaned forward, grinning, whispering in his good ear.

"That makes two of us."

* * *

AU - who doesn't love a good old spar? I always thought that when Zuko firebends, he looks incredible. I also think that opposites attract, which is why I think that shipping Zutara is not just a fandom but a way of life. I'm not actually going to be at rest until Mike and Bryan acknowledge this massive fuck up.

I wrote this a while ago as a back up too, just in case I'd have nothing to post...I really can't update anything or work on any prompts for the next couple of weeks, so I hope you'll take this as an apology. However, once exams finish, I have about 9 weeks to write write write. I'm planning to update at least once every two days when that time comes around. Agni, help me.

- Yin


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